Well, it’s almost that time of year again – and doesn’t it come around quickly? I’m talking about the highlight of the European security calendar (unless you’re counting the upcoming SC Europe Awards where I’m delighted to say that Vormetric is shortlisted in two categories) — Infosecurity Europe, which takes place April 23-25 in London.
So, what will the hot topics be this year?
BYOD and protecting mobile have been key trends over the past few years, and I expect that theme will continue. Also, given that security is the #1 concern of CIOs looking to embrace the cloud, I think there will be lots of discussion around the best ways to secure sensitive data in the cloud. Lastly, I envision two other topics of conversation — namely how to thwart Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and how to secure “Big Data.”
BYOD is outside our wheelhouse, so I’ll leave that to others. As for the other three, here’s where I think the conversations are headed…
Although it has been mooted for a number of years, enterprise cloud adoption is really starting to gather pace. Customers are looking at more agile, flexible, lower cost computing resources — but concerns about the security aspects, as well as data residency, persist. I expect there will be numerous conversations about if and how vendors can work together to address the cloud conundrum.
I’d also wager that the recent Mandiant report on APT 1 will spark a few debates about how sophisticated and targeted attacks are becoming. We’re certainly seeing a change in priorities for end user customers — they’re looking to put more controls closer to their data as it’s become crystal clear that legacy perimeter security measures just aren’t up to stopping these new types of APT attacks.
The reason I think Big Data will have a central role at the show is because companies are keen to find new ways to realize the potential of vast amounts of information. From a security perspective, the most notable Big Data platforms — Hadoop, MongoDB, Cassandra, CouchDB — don’t have their own significant security features, meaning that cyber attacks on the servers they operate on could potentially put Big Data projects at big risk. My bet is that end users will want to hear what they can do to prevent a Big Data project turning into a huge (and costly) data breach.
There’s certain to be plenty of interesting topics to chew upon, which is exactly what we’ll be doing here on the Vormetric blog in the run up to the show. Each week we’ll look at some of the keynote themes — new legislation, how to protect Big Data, and security considerations when outsourcing for example — so make sure you check back to read more.
We’d love to learn what you’re looking to discuss at Infosec this year, and we invite you to come and have a chat at the Vormetric stand from the 23rd of April.