INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
Adaptive trust needed to secure mobilefirst wireless enterprise
The first priority of defence used to be to secure the perimeter . But changes are shifting the old concept of a fixed boundary in mobile-first wireless enterprises at a particularly dangerous time , writes Gamal Emara , Country Manager , UAE , Aruba , a HPE company .
A few years ago , organisations only needed to contend with lone hackers seeking no more than bragging rights for breaching a system . Now , the threat vectors range from global criminals seeking financial gain to nationstates trying to steal trade secrets or blackmail their victims .
And the threats are escalating with attackers increasingly targeting the proliferating number of IoT devices that are coming online . Market researcher Gartner expects that some 6.4 billion “ things ” will be connected to the IoT this year , up 30 % from 2015 . That rapid increase also has implications for enterprise security .
Consider , for example , the muchpublicised breach of a national retailer a few years back . The attackers gained entry through the systems of an HVAC contractor , which they compromised after an employee of the contractor opened a phishing email . Welcome to the enterprise world ’ s new security nightmare reality : your perimeter now extends to everyone ( and everything ) who works for your company ’ s third party contractors . If that doesn ’ t wake you up like an ice cold shower , nothing will .
Back in the era of fixed perimeters , it was relatively easy to identify what to trust and what not to trust . Anything inside the perimeter was OK ; anything outside was treated with suspicion . But when people and devices are mobile , they move fluidly and freely across the perimeter . Instead of focusing on the perimeter , we have to focus on the user and the user ’ s apps and devices — in context . Contextual understanding means assigning access policies according to the context in which specific users , apps and devices access data resources . You ’ ll also need to be prepared to address a myriad of new challenges . What kind of device is being used ? What applications are on the device ? Who is using the device ? What time of day is it ? From where is the access taking place ? Every one of us can appear quite different to our network depending
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