Author: Paul German

According to Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell Technologies, software-defined data centres will become “pretty much de facto standard” in the next 5 to 10 years, speaking at the Dell EMC World 2017 in May. On face value, this might not seem like a revolutionary prediction. After all, the IT infrastructure landscape has undergone a fundamental transformation in the last decade, with virtualised hardware, network function virtualisation (NFV) and software defined networking (SDN) decoupling the hardware and network infrastructure from the application, and the application itself being increasingly located anywhere across the cloud. The era of dedicated hardware-based solutions would indeed…

Community Led Threat Prevention Community based threat detection and prevention has been a fundamental principle in Anti-Virus and Intrusion Detection Systems for years.  Pooling the information and experience of multiple organisations to rapidly identify emerging threats, this collaborative approach enables security companies to quickly create a patch and disseminate it globally to minimise a hacker’s opportunity with that specific attack vector. This model is now being extended to voice security in a bid to combat the escalating threats, including toll fraud, telephony denial of service and voice mail hacking attacks, leveraging the cloud based Session Border Controller (SBC) and community…

Dear Editor, It is time for organisations to bury dedicated Hardware-based Security solutions. Recent years have seen a fundamental transformation in IT strategy, with networks being more agile and quickly deployed and applications now deliverable quickly, in any location and scaled to meet an organisation’s requirements. From virtualised hardware to network function virtualisation and software defined networking, the hardware and network infrastructure has become decoupled from the application and the application itself is increasingly located anywhere across the cloud. And, this decoupled approach demands a different approach to security; it can no longer be defined by network controls because those…

Organisations have latched on to the need to secure SIP trunking solutions by implementing a Session Border Controller (SBC). The problem is that the vast majority of SBCs are considered not just one- off investments but also one-off deployments. Yet from denial of service attacks to toll fraud, SIP trunking is not only inherently vulnerable but that vulnerability continues to change and escalate. Few companies would fail to update anti-virus software – so why assume the SBC can protect against changing threats without similar routine updates? The fact is that in their current guise, most SBCs actually leave organisations with…

The list of critical data stored by government agencies is endless. From credit card data, passport numbers, drivers’ license numbers and tax information, government agencies are storing vast amounts of data that create the perfect treasure trove for hackers to exploit. What’s more, with strict regulations being enforced to ensure that organisations not only keep their data secure but that they become more transparent about data breaches when they do occur, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), there really is no room for government agencies not to follow these regulations themselves. However, unfortunately this industry does not…

Dear Editor, The Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2016 released this week reveals some interesting statistics about the state of the UK cybersecurity landscape. Predominantly, the report shows that a massive 65% of large firms detected a cybersecurity breach or attack in the last year; with 25% of these experiencing at least one breach per month. Perhaps more shocking is that only half (51%) of all businesses have attempted to identify the cyber risks faced by their organisation, meaning that the other half is unaware of any potential threats. And these threats are endless.  Modern working practices have come on leaps…

2016 hasn’t begun in a very positive way for education institutions. January 2016 saw data on 80,000 students, faculty, and staff at UC Berkeley compromised in the University’s third data breach disclosure of the past 15 months. This was followed by a breach of 63,000 names and social security numbers of current and former students and staff at the University of Central Florida in early February 2016 obtained when hackers attacked the school’s computer system. Data breaches and security hacks aren’t new to this industry. In fact, one of the earliest books written about computer hacking featured hacking at universities. Arguably,…

With $4.45 billion spent during a major online shopping weekend in November 2015 alone (Fortune), it’s clear that the need for retailers to safeguard credit card data, consumer data, transactions and other sensitive data is becoming ever more pressing. Such a large volume of critical data is passed between various points every second, making it essential for the infrastructure to be protected from end to end. To overcome this, Paul German, VP EMEA, Certes Networks gives five essential Do’s and Don’ts for retailers to keep in mind when putting strategies in place to keep customer data protected from the hackers.…

An abundance of security breaches came to light throughout 2015; so many that hearing yet another hacking story on the news wasn’t surprising. Now that 2016 has arrived, Paul German, VP EMEA, Certes Networks gives three predictions for what will happen in IT security this year. “Breach containment” will be recognised as a new area of focus for IT security strategies. Industry researchers show that the average time of breach detection remains at around 200 days, which is an eternity for hackers to be loose in your IT systems. Despite efforts to improve breach detection strategies, these still aren’t showing…

Cyber security isn’t working. Too many companies are being breached; and governments globally are recognising the need to invest heavily to protect vital services and infrastructure. However, today’s defence in depth security models are not completely flawed; they are, perhaps, naïve. When firewalls are being easily bypassed and it’s taking upwards of six months to detect a breach, the reliance on traditional access control, threat detection and threat protection is clearly inadequate. Organisations need to add another layer – breach containment. It is only by recognising that a breach has already occurred and containing that breach within a defined and…