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April - 2009 - issue > CEO Spot Light
No Single security solution is suffice
Sanjay Pradhan
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The advent of technology like cloud computing, which is merging the mobile devices with the desktops / laptops in the enterprises have really stretched the vulnerability to security threats nowadays. With its ability to create virtual infrastructure on demand for use in software development and testing, among other uses, cloud computing itself is creating sandboxes for hackers. A more malicious use of cloud computing is the fact that hackers can use virtualized infrastructure as a launching pad for new attacks. In fact, virtualized infrastructure is a resource, and as with all resources, they can be used for good or bad.

Interestingly, SaaS is also providing huge opportunities for hackers to break in as on-demand applications are becoming more prevalent within enterprises. And the nature of on-demand applications poses particular security challenges. In order to detect and prevent attacks, enterprise IT managers are increasing their use of message encryption, as well as implementing multifactor authentication and multilayered security environments. It has become a pain for enterprises to combat the attacks from outside, especially at theses times when activities like social networking are at its peak. Plus, integration of VoIP and mobile devices, to the line of IT infrastructure, has made enterprises more susceptible to external attacks.

Hence, any entrepreneur who wants to excel in this space has got lot more challenges than before, apart from funding issues. With the technological environment and the technologies changing rapidly, vulnerability to external attacks is also growing proportionally. With lot of creative attacks being targeted, no single solution is sufficient to combat this. The challenge is to get to know about what’s really happening inside enterprises, as many of them are reluctant to divulge their security pain points fearing loss of business. For an entrepreneur this is a challenge and a great opportunity to come up with innovative solutions and products.

In five years from now, as the line between desktops, laptops and mobile devices become very thin due to the massive wi-fi penetration across enterprises than today, building a apt security product to protect this infrastructure from much more sophisticated attacks would be a key challenge specially on day zero. I believe products, which can protect on day zero with no false positives will have a great future in coming years.
The author is CEO, Max Secure Software
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