The same attention that is paid to the protection of the physical and tangible assets of a company, must be dedicated to guaranteeing the integrity of the data that is handled within it.
By Alejandra García Vélez
Companies remain vulnerable to information loss and leaks in their networks. While it is true that corporations are increasingly aware of the need to have protection measures for their information and systems, it is also true that computer threats are improving every day.
Not surprisingly, according to a recent report by the company Fire Eye, about 95% of enterprise networks have security flaws. This is due to the fact that the investment made in this area worldwide amounts to US $ 20,000 million.
"The research concluded that virtually all businesses are still compromised by malware. More than 95% of companies have malicious infections within their network each week and nearly 80% have an average of 75 infections per week," the report explains.
The above data shows that even the most computer security conscious industries are being affected by dangerous infections. All the companies studied in this report and all sectors appear under attack. Even sectors such as the financial services, healthcare, government sectors, and personally identifiable information industries show a significant infection rate as shown in the chart.
Based on this information, the report states that "today's cybercriminals are almost 100% effective at breaking traditional security defenses in all organizations and industries, from those with high security knowledge to those furthest behind in the field."
Although the results of the study, carried out by the end of 2011, are not very encouraging, we must not ignore the work of IT departments in terms of protecting companies' systems and information. In this sense, there is an increasing level of knowledge and increasingly effective techniques are used to avoid breaches or losses of information.
Protection
Precisely, to address these protection strategies essential for today's companies, we have the participation of two experts in the field. Mr. Helder Canales Rodríguez, regional manager for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and the Caribbean of Belden and Javier Liendo, security specialist of Cisco.
The first annotation of the two interviewees, was to highlight the importance that its information has for a company, in fact they qualified it as one of the main assets of any company, which is why it must be protected with the same commitment that any physical asset would be protected.
In this regard, Canales pointed out that both the protection of computer equipment and infrastructure must be taken into account, as well as the security of information, which has undoubtedly become one of the most important issues within an organization.
"Information security is today one of the most important active values of companies, so it is important to prevent it from being accessed, deleted, manipulated, modified with interests other than those of the company," said Canales.
For his part, Liendo said that "in today's economy, information is a very important asset, issues such as payroll, market strategies, financial data and in general the daily life of an organization at the end of the day become information, so if this is not protected the company as a whole is violated."
But when we approach the issue of protection we find two aspects, or better yet with a question: from whom should the company be protected? The answer is simple in appearance: from external and internal attacks.
However, it should be noted that the two interviewees agree that the main threat of an organization is its own employees or users, since it is they who with their inadequate practices open the door for both types of attacks.
External threats are of course attacks that are carried out via hackers, or the presence of viruses that come from sources outside the company. While insider threats are related to the company's own workers.
"The latter are more dangerous, because they already have an access key and certain privileges to work within the company's network, generating vulnerabilities in the network intentionally or accidentally," Canales explained.
Of course, for each case there are protection strategies. For example, firewalls in the case of external security, as well as other types of equipment that allow detecting and stopping those people who are trying remotely to enter the local network.
In the case of internal users who already have access to the system, it is possible to generate different networks, with different user levels that allow limiting user access only to what is strictly necessary.
Canales, also remember that you must think about the physical security of virtual data, that is, take into account what would happen if the server presents a failure, or if there is an eventuality such as a fire or an earthquake that affects the physical infrastructure of the network. For these cases there are new options, for example the use of retardant cables that in case of fire are not affected.
For his part, Liendo emphasized that organizations must visualize their network infrastructure as a whole in which the best strategy is to make each component of the infrastructure (network, servers, telephones, antennas, applications, etc.) play a role within the security strategy, because due to the evolution that offensive mechanisms are having, it is very difficult to contain many of the risks that exist only using specific products.
Mobile: the new challenge
Undoubtedly, the evolution of access equipment and devices has generated new risks and, consequently, new solutions. The popularization of laptops, smartphones and tablets has changed the way users access information, who access the network from their personal computers.
Therefore, IT departments are faced with a challenge, being forced to guarantee the security of the network even if it is accessed from computers outside the organization and not through the equipment supplied and approved by the company that includes all preventive measures.
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