Cloud computing, social media and mobile devices will be the main security focus for businesses over the next year, according to networking giant Cisco Systems.
During a discussion about security at the firm’s Cisco Live event held in London this week, Gordon Thompson, director of security sales for Europe said that the shift to a hosted delivery model and the consumerisation of IT would be the key challenges for his customers.
"Security is top of mind at the moment and we’re seeing increased risk from a number of areas, but three in particular. Social media – which is accepted in businesses now, the challenge is how to use it without it becoming something that is unproductive. The second area is cloud – what is the approach to security as things move to the cloud? The other area we’re seeing is demands from employees around mobility – being able to use any device they want at any time from anywhere to do their job. This consumerisation of IT is driving more organisation to look at how they build much broader security strategies," he said.
The increasing number of mobile devices in use at businesses means that security vendors are having to change their approach as well, added Tom Gillis, Cisco’s director of security.
"Security used to be done on two main places, the endpoint and the perimeter. Over the last 18 months those endpoints have exploded to thousands of devices," he said. "You can no longer rely having a certain software configuration on the endpoint, you can’t count on that any more. So we really need to think about a completely new approach to building and delivering security."
Integrating security in to the fabric of the network will provide a more manageable platform, Gillis added.
Security firms such as Sophos and PandaLabs have also recently claimed social networks are providing a security headaches for businesses.
