The State of Network Security – Interview with Fortinet

Check out this information packed ‘state of network security’ podcast with Patrick Bedwell, VP of Product Marketing for Fortinet.  Fortinet is a Carousel partner and a leading provider of security technology forbusinesses, governments and other organizations.  Some of the topics we discuss include:

Unified Threat Management, or Next Generation Firewall as it’s sometimes called, is a trend in the industry that refers to the consolidation of several different types of security technology into a single device in order to make security more effective and more efficient.  This centralized approach allows businesses to inspect traffic, enforce policy and detect threats all from a single dashboard.  We review why this is important and why this approach is gaining so much traction.

Attacks have become much more sophisticated and harder to detect.  If a cyber-criminal wants to spoof an email, there is a lot of information on the web that makes it much easier to trick people. There are a lot more of these multi-pronged attacks that convinces unwitting employees to open the door to invaders.

We also review how criminals are using multiple technologies to avoid detection that several years ago didn’t exist.  This makes it harder to know when your network is at risk.

Social media sites and content based attacks are becoming ubiquitous.  Couple that with the fact that anything with a keyboard can access the network, and businesses are struggling to stay in front of the threat landscape both from a policy and a technology perspective.

Fortinet sees security’s role as changing in the enterprise.  We discuss how it is being elevated to a corporate priority, especially in the face of the rapidly evolving threats and a changing compliance and regulatory landscape.  We review where businesses are investing and why, and how security teams are addressing these issues.

Every business is different, and we review the biggest challenges IT teams are addressing relative to security in today’s environment.  Expertise, technology, policy, employee education, process and consumer devices all need to be addressed, and we review how businesses – large and small – are working to identify their priorities and improve security.

Fortinet feels that this trend has created a new era in security – the Wild West.  We review the challenge of ‘apps’ and how to enable enterprise policy management for phones and tablets – many of which do not belong to the company.  We also review the fluid state of corporate thinking around mobile devices and the dificulty of enabling policy when many companies have unclear or ad hoc approaches to mobile device security.

Technology only gets businesses so far when it comes to security.  Fortinet suggests several best practices to supplement the technology, including:

• Making security a corporate priority and getting top level stakeholders involved and educated so this becomes a consistent boardroom discussion.
• Taking an “Auditors” approach to security; in much the same way that finance has consistent, trackable processes, so should security.

Whew, that’s a lot of information.  Believe it or not, this is all packed into a tight, 23 minute interview.  Take a listen, or download it and listen to it on your drive home.  You’ll be glad you did.