Securing the future

A recent event held by Frost and Sullivan, "Emerging paradigms in information security" threw light on the emerging trends of the security market. Speaking on Self Defending Networks (SDNs), with special emphasis on day zero protection, the event sought to alert participants of the unending certainty that new variants of worms would forever attempt to attack the systems.

The concept the speakers offered in return was day zero protection by means of an intrusion detection system. What that effectively means is the computer registers the pattern of unauthorized activity, and if more than a recommended number of users complain of the same problem that activity is quarantines. As such, an unknown virus will be detected as soon as it is found in the system. Time that was earlier lost on identifying a thumbprint and then creating anti-virus will now no longer be as long. Symantec claimed to be the best suited for that because of their wide spread protection implementation, and online connectivity for clients to their consequent database.

What the security specialists at the event recommended was that every network should run a combination of anti-virus, fire wall and intrusion detection for complete security. That was the solution Cisco offered with their SDN. Cisco has made a tie up with some of the leading anti-virus and security solution providers to offer a wholesome solution. The SDNs only seeming catch is that its intrusion detection and policy implementation will not work unless all the hardware (including switches and routers) are those of Cisco.

- Deepali Gupta