Unite to secure!

No one ever said that managing and protecting every device in an enterprise would be easy. But has the job ever been as challenging as it is today? Think about it: the typical enterprise now contains a steadily increasing number of smartphones, peripherals, PDAs, laptops and desktops. It is estimated that four out of five companies have lost data through laptops,  and half of all companies have lost data through USB drives. Then there are the servers and gateways.In general, enterprises have responded to this development by adopting what can be called a scattered  approach to security, drawing on various technologies from different vendors. But a scattered approach to enterprise security is problematic. It’s costly to implement, a pain to manage and not as effective as it needs to be. Proliferating threats The IT threat landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years. It used to be that the majority of  attacks were meant simply to make headline news. Today, attacks have become far more sophisticated and  stealthy, targeting specific organisations to reap financial gain. Professional hackers continuously develop new tactics to gain unauthorised access to an organisation’s systems and information. One gauge of the growing sophistication of attacks is the appearance of blended threats, which integrate multiple attack methods such as  worms, Trojan horses and zero-day threats. For example, the Conficker  worm infected as many as 12 million PCs. This was an exceptionally persistent, aggressive threat. It spread  over shared flashmemory drives, and the most recent variant even blocked access to websites of security- software vendors, creating a “secure infrastructure for cybercrime”. The current economic downturn further complicates matters, making businesses even more susceptible to  attacks. Angry ex-employees and hackers hungry for income are finding ever more creative – and destructive  – ways to break into systems. To combat the growing threats against their IT infrastructures, organisations have acquired and deployed a  variety of security products from a variety of vendors. But deploying these security products individually is  not only time-consuming; it also increases IT complexity and costs. Organisations then need to provide  management, training and support for a variety of different endpoint security solutions. Also, differing  technologies can often work against one another or impede system performance due to high resource  consumption. In many cases, the end result has been overlap, protection gaps and increased licensing costs. A comprehensive approach to security With IT organisations worldwide facing severe budget restrictions, they’re looking for places to cut, and  security teams aren’t exempt from the pressure. Everyone is being asked to do more with less. By  implementing unifi ed management and protection solutions, organisations can simplify the execution of their protection strategy while reducing costs with a single vendor. I recommend a protected endpoint and messaging environment that is secure against today’s complex  malware, data loss and spam threats, and allows quick system and data recovery in the event of failure. It  must enable organisations to reduce the cost of securing their environment and more effectively manage the  risks inherent in today’s IT infrastructures with proven endpoint, messaging security and system recovery  technologies. Your customers put themselves at risk when their IT organisation lacks the visibility to protect sensitive  information. Such visibility is not possible with a patchwork of security point products. For enterprises to keep pace in today’s rapidly changing IT environment and defend against an evolving threat landscape, a unifi ed,  layered and comprehensive protection strategy is the only way to secure your business.