Data - secured environment - A priority for enterprises

Vishak Raman, Head of the Managed Security Services Business, Tata Communications

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Sagement (SIEM), DDoS protection, data loss prevention tools etc. & ro­bust structure for real-time security protection can reduce the threat of wannacry ransomware.

Known vulnerabilities – The adoption of open-source platforms has levelled the playing field for many organisations. Enterprises today, look to integrate off-the-shelf soft­ware packages to existing platforms, reducing cost of developing tools in-house. In the process, it is easy miss the risk of existing vulnerabilities be­ing exploited by cyber criminals. HPs Cyber Risk Report 2015 highlights that 44% of security breaches in 2014 came from 2 to 4 years old vulner­abilities. Regular software patches and skill set upgradation is important to avoid common misconfigurations and protect the business assets.

"Enterprises should look at a global provider of managed security services, which is uniquely equipped to balance between cost, performance and operational objectives with a solution tailored to business requirements"

Internet of Things – The evolu­tion of IoT implies more devices be­coming part of the communication ecosystem. With IDC predicting that 212 billion devices will be connect­ed by 2020, the growing relationship between the IoT and cloud, can po­tentially multiply the number of end­points connected to cloud computing environ­ments exponentially, which may have severe security implications. IoT may provide excellent business opportuni­ties, but companies should be mind­ful about ensuring that access is lim­ited and secure. Sensitive data should be encrypted, access must be restrict­ed, while role based access must be treated with utmost importance.

Best practices for a robust security environment:

1) Threats and Compliance – Organ­isations must take a deep-dive into what specific threats are on the rise and what concerns their business the most. Also worth looking into what new compliance rules (depending on varied nature of business) are set to kick in and accordingly evaluate the need to change the play of products & services. This assessment can help organisations chalk out the most seri­ous potential risks

2) Applications – Managed services and cloud environments are being used to deliver applications which work in tandem with one resource calling the other. This provides flex­ibility but also provides access points for attacks. Organisations should build a roadmap to deploy defences at appropriate touch-points, protect­ing mission critical applications and improving application security pos­ture

3) Event logs and response plan - Event logs provide ongoing and a near real-time view into what hap­pens in the network. It is one of the most important diagnostic tools. Event logs also help measure overall health of the network and help set up a plan for multiple incidents that might occur in the IT environment. Organisations should create efficient incident response/recovery plans for smooth running of the business and regularly update their security envi­ronment

Services to adopt for a secure enter­prise environment:

Here are some key services that can help create a secure environment that not only takes care of existing threats, but also targeted evolving and un­known threats:

DDoS protection – A managed service from an established service provider capable detecting a DDoS attack and removing all malicious traffic, before it reaches corporate IT systems

Data Loss Prevention – Hardware and software solutions to constantly monitor data entering or leaving an organisation’s network, and busi­ness-critical data stored across all de­vices. This includes automated alerts to enterprise users to take appropri­ate actions

Malware Protection – Protects or­ganisations from known as well as unknown, zero-day threats. The core technology within the service uses advanced file analysis and sandbox­ing techniques for identifying ‘signa­ture-less’ threats

Security Incident and Event Man­agement – This service provides with information on overall security pos­ture by analysing logs from enterprise networks, servers and applications. The enterprise is presented with ac­tionable information that can be used for auditing the network and taking steps to secure the weak areas

Enterprises should look at a glob­al provider of managed security ser­vices, which is uniquely equipped to balance between cost, performance and operational objectives with a solution tailored to business require­ments. The combination of multiple deployment models provided by an established player will help deliver highly secure, flexible and cost-effec­tive solutions.

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