The growing problem of information security and risk management [sponsored]

NTT Com's WideAngle can secure against cyber threats

Organisations are at growing threat of serious security breaches that can impact both their bottom line and their reputation. Services such as NTT Com’s WideAngle though can help.

One of the big problems that industry faces is that of information security and risk management, and one of the big problems that that presents in turn is that risk is a global phenomenon. The pirates, the hackers and the criminals that present security risks are increasingly sophisticated and have increasing resources at their disposal, with the result that the threat landscape is constantly changing from day to day.

What was secure one minute may be just one software upgrade away from being vulnerable the next.

Ulrik Holmen, Director of Solutions Architecture Advanced Services, NTT Communications Security, puts it into global perspective. “I would say that generally there are thousands, maybe ten thousand, attacks on organisations’ infrastructures on a daily basis.”

As a result Managed Security Services (MSS) have become a critical retirement for leading organisations. They provide far more than passive responses, charting the emergent and evolving threats and assessing an organisation’s infrastructure to detect vulnerabilities, and NTT Com’s new WideAngle Managed Security Services (MSS) is billed as a a step change in their reach; providing insight to understand what is happening at both the network and application layer.

What is WideAngle?

As the name suggests, WideAngle is a global integrated security service that provides integrated risk management services to review, improve and monitor information and communications technology. It provides a combination of professional services, security solutions and managed security services powered by what the company refers to as the ‘Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) engine.’

It truly can boast global knowledge of both risk and vulnerability, employing 900 security professionals in 14 countries supported by risk analysts at Global Risk Operation Centres who provide advanced security monitoring all day, every day, 24 /7 / 365.

Its professional services comprise three main components: a Consulting Service that researches global security risks and provides a wide range of support from security monitoring to security improvement; a  Rescue Service that contains the damage caused during an incident and supports environment restoration; and a  Vulnerability Assessment Service that identifies vulnerabilities in the existing information and communications technology environment.

And you would be surprised at how many of them there are nowadays. No organisation has a single endpoint, but a range of them that move around geographically as its employees do business, connecting to multiple WiFi networks through multiple devices as they go.

The video below steps through some of the challenges the WideAngle team deal with, but it is worth highlighting one fact mentioned within it. The most common successful attacks on an organisation are via a web browser and its plug ins, typically trying to lure a single user within a company to a specific site that can exploit vulnerabilities is his or her local software, install malware, and then act as a staging point for further attacks once inside the system.

“Security and particularly cyber risk are in the top 10 of every organisation’s risk register and its a growing risk,” comments Julia Graham, Technical Director, Airmic. “Recent research published this year shows that about 90% of large businesses have had some form of data breach.”

Protect and survive

It is a chilling prospect but one that WideAngle can mitigate against, whether in the cloud or on-premises, domestic or overseas.

Its risk analysts uncover actual and potential security risks through automated correlation of event logs by the SIEM engine and detailed risk analyst insight. This makes it possible to perform multi-layered security management of endpoints, networks, servers, applications and their contents, eliminating false positives and detecting previously invisible attacks.

What’s more it provides five operational levels of security services with options for security device management by the GROCs and differing levels of analysis, depending on available budgets as well as security level and risk tolerance.

Yes, it’s a cost, but it’s also a necessary one. “The financial average cost of attacks so far is a couple of million pounds for the larger companies,” says Julia Graham. “But they can cause far more reputational damage, You can rebuild data, you can recover that, but it can take many more years to rebuild a reputation.”

Find out more about NTT Com WideAngle and the security threats it can protect your organisation against by watching the video below.