There is a new security landscape these days, made possible by increasing use of BYOD, cloud, and the Internet and distributed networks. Companies can do business faster and employees have a lot more flexibility for getting their work done, but, in exchange for these benefits, IT has to ensure network security while carefully steering around all the new unknown threats proliferated by today’s time-saving technologies. This task is even further complicated by the fact that IT doesn’t control most of the devices used to access the company’s network. This new wave of IT threats attacks from both inside and outside of the network, launched by a range of sources ─ everything from external hackers and malware that sneaks in via the many different mobile devices used for network access, to malicious attacks from insiders with privileged access to totally accidental actions by an ordinary user. Whether intentional or accidental, these unknown threats can do serious damage to the network and leave the organization with a huge price to pay in terms of lost business and fines for non-compliance.
A recent survey conducted for Dell by Vanson Bourne polled 1,440 IT decision-makers in 10 countries across both private and public sectors. We wanted to see how aware organizations around the world are of these new threats, and how well they are prepared to deal with them. The results are disturbing in the face of the new security landscape through which organizations of all sizes are now picking their way. Ninety-three percent of respondents said their organizations allow personal devices for work, and 73 percent said they currently use cloud (90 percent in the United States), so they are definitely vulnerable to the unknown threats that can infiltrate their networks through those sources. But, while almost two-thirds said they had dealt with a security breach within the last 12 months, only 18 percent consider predicting and detecting unknown threats a top security concern.
Dell offers assistance in combatting unknown threats with the recent release of Privileged Governance Solution, which we are showcasing at this week’s RSA. Dell’s Privileged Governance Solution integrates our solutions for privileged management, and identity governance and administration to strengthen access governance for privileged users ─ those with the most powerful access to an organization’s most critical systems and information ─ as well as everyday users. Our modular, integrated solution automates the process for provisioning, managing and governing access to all system data for both groups of users within a single console, securing unmanaged privileged accounts and impeding both internal and external attackers’ ability of to exploit them.
On another positive note, we are pleased to note that a number of Dell security products are finalists for the 2014 Info Security Products Guide global awards, and the SC Magazine awards. In the Info Security Products Guide’s Products and Services Excellence Categories, Dell finalists are Dell™ One Identity Manager - Data Governance Edition (Best Security Service - new or updated version), and Dell™ One Identity Cloud Access Manager (Cloud Security). The Dell™ SonicWALL SuperMassive E10800 is a finalist forAwesome Product of the Year.
The SC Magazine finalists are Dell™ SonicWALL Mobility Solutions - SRA Series (Best Mobile Security Solution); Dell™ SonicWALL SRA 7.0 Web Application Firewall (Best Web Application Firewall); Dell™ One Identity Manager (Best Identity Management Solution); and Dell™ SecureWorks Managed Security Services (Best Managed Security Service).
We think these award nominations help confirm that we are on the right path. The need for tight security inside and outside all of an organization’s perimeters is not going to go away. At Dell, we create security solutions that address the challenges that pain our customers the most. Our Connected Security approach embeds security into the very fabric of software, governing access to every application and protecting every device, both inside and outside the corporate network. Our comprehensive set of solutions protects organizations from the inside out and the outside in ─ from the data to the endpoint to the cloud ─ and by connecting these capabilities, we take security one step further to provide deeper insights and stronger predictive analytics so that fast strategic action can be taken to thwart all threats ─ known and unknown.