Network technology to counter the sophisticated criminal
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 7/1/2006 12:00:00 AM
"Now more than ever, it's important for you to be proactive and agile, to think creatively, and to push the boundaries of what's possible."
So said John W. Thompson, chairman and CEO of Symantec Corp. as part of his opening remarks at the annual Vision Conference, held in May in San Francisco, and featuring state-of-the-art discussions on storage and security. The challenges and threats to security, Thompson, asserted, are greater than ever, as "enterprises become more collaborative, more people have access to the infrastructure and the applications, and information is more distributed and accessible than ever before.
"The main threat to information these days isn't necessarily a large-scale, fast-moving virus or worm," Thompson continued. "From 2002 to 2004 there have been almost 100 medium- to high-risk attacks. Last year, there were only six. We've made significant headway in containing these types of threats."
Those, he said, are "yesterday's problems. "We face a bigger and perhaps more insidious challenge: sophisticated criminal elements are now behind many of today's attacks—and, unlike the hackers of the past, they are much more interested in anonymity than in notoriety… [and in] serious financial gain."
Symantec's Global Intelligence Network gathers data on emerging threats and new sources of risks. It tracks vulnerabilities in more than 30,000 technologies from 4,000-plus vendors, with more than 24,000 network sensors in 180 countries. Symantec, it is said, "sees" more than 25 percent of the world's email.
"Our insight and intelligence around the connected world is unsurpassed," Thompson concluded. The purpose is "to protect the infrastructure, the information, and the interactions" of that world.
