This Week's Gurus

For several years, “cloud” has been the inevitable trend in the IT space. Businesses are increasingly rolling out different cloud applications, enabling employees to access information stored in the cloud and instantly share it with geographically dispersed colleagues through their laptops or phones. However, as cloud tools grow in popularity, so do the security risks. With employees sharing sensitive company and customer data and documents on cloud-based platforms, what can you really do to protect...

The relentless pursuit of a seamless digital user experience is having serious consequences in the workplace.   The expectation for convenient access to corporate and consumer applications such as Gmail, Twitter or Dropbox is undermining the efforts of CSOs seeking to protect sensitive personal and commercial data from falling into the wrong hands.   For everyone working in IT security, if this trend becomes the “new normal” and your company’s users are accessing systems and...

The endpoint is where the security should be, as it has been neglected and now it is “bringing sexy back”.   Chatting with Neil Campbell, general manager for security at Dimension Data, he let out that term and dared me to use it, as we discussed the ever-evolving endpoint. I started with his thoughts on the mobile device management (MDM) space. He predicted that it would become a part of system management, and while it...

Last month 12 UK-based security firms travelled with Prime Minister David Cameron in his cyber riddled trip to the White House. Among that number was Darktrace, a company who I met a few weeks later from briefing the PM on current issues. At the time, Darktrace CEO Nicole Eagan, said that there is a global demand for Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System approach to address the increasing challenges faced by companies.” Naturally the company said that...

In an article I published last year, I asked whether controls and considerations should be placed on personal data as they are on financial data.   That was in July, before the breaches at Sony Pictures and Anthem, the latter of which saw 80 million user details breached. In recent conversation with Lancope CTO TK Keanini, he said that with every breach he looks for two things – who did the internal findings and did...

There has not been a huge amount of security technology from the huge country that is Australia, but I recently had the opportunity to meet an established company looking to make a name in the UK.   Previously just known as Tier-3 with a the product named Huntsman, they have now rebranded as “Tier-3 Huntsman” and having formed in 1999 and been in the UK since 2004, I met with head of product management Piers...

According to Gartner, by 2020 as much as 60 per cent of enterprise information security budgets will be allocated to rapid detection and response approaches – up from less than ten per cent in 2014.   Whilst this is a phenomenal shift in budgetary priorities around security, it is not surprising. Today, enterprises find themselves under constant and continuous attack. New machines are probed within minutes, vulnerable machines exploited within hours and the availability of...

Safer Internet Day (SID) launched four years ago today. Largely aimed at helping consumers and young people to be safe and responsible users of digital technologies, however, the benefits of extending it to a corporate audience has unfortunately been widely ignored by enterprises.   They have, of course, participated in the education programmes organised by SID, but I wonder if as well as helping promote e-safety externally the day offers an opportunity for a little...

Following his claims about the state of Government, I wanted to press David Davis further on comments he had made publically about the intelligence agency, GCHQ.   In our previous article, Davis said that the leaks by Edward Snowden were not an accident, but an inevitability.   I asked Davis if the problem is that GCHQ is free to act as it has, and better regulation would have it under better control? He agreed that...

“I am not interested in any ministerial position, and certainly not that one about to be vacated by Francis Maude.”   David Davis MP, who has spoken publicly against Government surveillance and accused Parliament of complacency when it comes to the actions of intelligence agencies, told me that he was happy with his position on the backbenches as he can “say what I like about what I like and get attention paid to it”.  ...