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RSA President Outlines Steps to Bolster Cyber Defense in Asia and Beyond

Announcement posted by Ovato 22 Jul 2015

RSA President Outlines Steps to Bolster Cyber Defense in Asia and Beyond
Adopt Faster Detection and Response to End “Vicious Cycle” of Prevention and Remediation, Yoran Recommends
 
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Recognising SE Asia’s rapid mobile and cloud technology growth and the security challenge it represents, RSA President Amit Yoran calls for the region’s organisations to re-think their approach to cyber defense
  • Yoran outlines five key principles of a next generation approach to security based on faster detection and more effective response
  • Keynote address reaches largest audience yet at RSA Conference Asia Pacific & Japan in Singapore
RSA CONFERENCE ASIA PACIFIC & JAPAN, SINGAPORE, JULY 22, 2015
 
Amit Yoran, president of RSA, The Security Division of EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), today issued a call for SE Asian companies and governments to re-think their traditional approaches to cyber defense as they increasingly turn to mobile and cloud technologies to store and access data and systems. Yoran addressed his comments to government and private industry cybersecurity experts in Singapore at the RSA Conference Asia Pacific & Japan.  In his speech, Yoran discussed how the rapid growth of mobile and cloud technologies in Asia represent a boon to the organisations and industries of the region but also a significant threat to their legacy security operations.  As mobile and cloud technologies decentralise organisations’ digital environments, the perimeter on which traditional cyber defenses are based is disappearing.
 
Despite the disappearing perimeter, Asian businesses and businesses around the world continue to rely primarily on perimeter protection technologies like firewalls, anti-virus, and intrusion detection systems to prevent breaches, only to see those tools invariably fail under the onslaught of today’s advanced attacks, Yoran said.  Compounding that failure is the current practice of relying on SIEM and other signature-based tools that require historical experience to detect advanced threats, which oftentimes have no precedent. This combination of antiquated technologies and misguided practices is the root of the vast majority of today’s security failings.
 
Yoran asked the audience to re-think their approach to security, using the dramatic digital evolution of Singapore Post and the region’s other postal services as an example of the level of change required in cybersecurity.  The top executive at RSA went on to outline a new approach to security focused on faster detection of and more effective response to cyber threats in a series of five principles:
  1. Acceptance that even advanced protections are insufficient for today’s threats - “No matter how high or smart the walls, focused adversaries will find ways over, under, around, and through.”
     
  2. Deep, pervasive visibility from the endpoint to the network to the cloud is necessary – “The single most common and catastrophic mistake made by security teams today is under-scoping an incident and rushing to clean up compromised systems before understanding the broader campaign.”
     
  3. Effective management of identities matters more than ever - “In a world with no perimeter and with fewer security anchor points, identity and authentication matter more than ever . . . At some point in every successful attack campaign, the abuse of identity is a stepping stone the attackers use to impose their will.”
     
  4. Organisations must leverage external threat intelligence - “[Threat intelligence] should be machine-readable and automated for increased speed and leverage.  It should be operationalised into your security program and tailored to our organisation’s assets and interests so that analysts can quickly address the threats that pose the greatest risk.”
     
  5. Security programs must be guided by an understanding of risk - “You must understand what matters to your business and what is mission critical.  You have to . . . defend what’s important and defend it with everything you have.”
Yoran concluded by reminding the audience that the technologies already exist for companies to move to a more effective approach to security focused on faster detection and response to security threats.  What is lacking is the will.  “This is not a technology problem. This is a mindset problem,” Yoran said.
 
Additional Resources About RSA
RSA’s Intelligence Driven Security solutions help organisations reduce the risks of operating in a digital world.  Through visibility, analysis, and action, RSA solutions give customers the ability to detect, investigate and respond to advanced threats; confirm and manage identities; and ultimately, help prevent IP theft, fraud and cybercrime. For more information on RSA, please visit www.rsa.com.