Pace of technology 'overwhelms' security professionals

Summary: An international survey has found that information security professionals feel challenged by the proliferation of mobile devices, cloud computing and social networking in the workplace

By Vivian Yeo | February 21, 2011 -- 15:31 GMT (07:31 PST)

Information security professionals feel overwhelmed by the rapid deployment of new technologies in the workplace, potentially putting government agencies, businesses and consumers at risk, says a new study released on Friday.

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According to the 2011 (ISC)2 Global Information Security Workforce Study (GISWS), IT security personnel are challenged by the proliferation of mobile devices as well as the rise of cloud computing and social networking. Many of the professionals admitted that they needed more training to manage these technologies yet reported that such tools were already deployed without security in mind.

Conducted by Frost & Sullivan in the second half of 2010, the study surveyed over 10,400 IT security professionals from the public and private sectors. US-based respondents made up 61 percent of total respondents, while 22.5 percent were from Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Respondents in Asia accounted for 16.5 percent of the sample pool.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Rapid tech adoption overwhelming security staff on ZDNet Asia.

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I highly recommend that these security professionals (and all IT, as well as "business" folks) read a timely blog. Google to "The Business-Technology Weave" - great info that really helps me to keep a sharp edge. The blog's author also has a book, I.T. WARS, that we use at work: specific sections have been incorporated into our New Employee Orientation, and we also use quite a bit of it in refresher training. Lots of the principles and warnings in that book have helped to keep us focused and on the right path. Stay safe out there!

janice33rpm

21 February, 2011 18:19

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This is unsurprising given that more applications have become web-enabled, so security teams have had a great deal more to worry about. The area that is seeing by far the biggest attention paid to it is attacks on applications and web servers themselves, which have been particularly high-profile, given the recent DDoS attacks made by hacker group ‘Anonymous’ on a variety of companies and institutions.

This has prompted many to use the powerful functionality of application delivery controllers (ADCs) which offer the ability to stop and inspect user requests, making sure they look correct, and to look for attacks within the actual application transaction itself. Central to this is the facility to understand what the user’s intention is, thus ensuring that integrity of the request. Also valuable is the ability of an application firewall (often part of an ADC’s armoury) to inspect bi-directional traffic.

F5 Networks

1 March, 2011 08:50

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