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The Enterprise security market has been influenced by various factors like never before. Services, cloud, mobile phones and social media has created three types of players: Services or online companies, traditional Enterprises that need to adopt to these new platforms and existing Security software players who try to cross over to the newer online customers. This article analyses five major trends and the impact of these for the channel partners and security services players in India.
Santosh Satam, Founder and CEO of Securbay Services, a Mumbai based Threat Intelligence Services Company and Mr. Subbu Subramanian, IT transformation and Application Delivery specialist share their opinion of the five major trends.
1. Incident response becomes the next form of incident prevention:
Santosh: “Threat Intelligence will not only add incidence prevention, but also incidence response will become an important factor in the lifecycle of the technologies and services focused on incident management services. Incident response – rather than just incident prevention – will be high on the menu. It’s inevitable that vulnerabilities and risks find their way into your ecosystem at some instance. One needs to look for indicators of compromise and vulnerabilities and ensure that you have a comprehensive incident response plan in place.”
Subbu: “With security incidents becoming more and more complex, it is inevitable that the entire incident lifecycle is covered. Enterprise software like Symantec and McAfee, have addressed this in terms of providing a comprehensive incident management solution as part of their Enterprise security package. Enterprise Security Software somehow also follow the ITIL framework to ensure that the incident response move towards problem management to provide more insights.”
2. More and More Enterprises now move towards Managed Security Services:
Santosh: “Security has become more like infrastructure now-a-days. It is now an embedded and ever-pervading subject. Mobile devices, end point devices, routers, server, storage devices and other security devices have embedded security features – and management software from these individual vendors work with Enterprise management software like HP or IBM to create a holistic security cover. Large Enterprises now see that service providers can combine sharp point products at a device level working well with holistic Enterprise management Systems like Tivoli or HP Openview to give more traction.”
Subbu: “We are talking about a holistic protection of the Enterprise. This is like a city. There are multiple entry points, and internal loopholes. The threats are both internal and external. To become truly proactive about incident response, you need visibility of other networks, so you’re aware of attacks that are occurring elsewhere. Only managed security services providers have this depth and breadth of insight. My experience with large players have reinforced this fact on a regular basis. In fact, Managed Security Services is not a standalone anymore. It goes with Managed Infrastructure services as a part and parcel.”
3. Cloud based IT Security Services gain prominence:
Santosh: “Many enterprises, especially small and medium enterprises, are going for Enterprise Security. I see a continued increase in the adoption of cloud services for security in the coming year as well. This holds true for software-as-a-service solutions, such as secure Web proxy, and secure email in the cloud. These solutions are particularly attractive as the implementation effort is negligible. The service provider provides this service as a plug and play and that helps small businesses especially to focus on their core businesses, without bothering about how to manage their security. “
Subbu: “It is important to note that Cloud is here to stay. Cloud provides ease of management for the Enterprise as never before. However, when some portion of the application or infrastructure is outsourced, the security aspect of that is as well. I would recommend that channels and service players to address security aspects when taking up end to end infrastructure services. Channels can also work with other hosting players to take up security services as a specialty subject. Another key area is Application level security for Cloud platform. Enterprise security players have a different licensing scheme for cloud based products, and that has to be factored in especially.”
4. From security focus to Threat Intelligence focus
Santosh: “2015 will see the notion of security changing from conventional security to threat intelligence. Organizations need to move forward in their businesses. There are business impediments alright, but there are also specific information security threats of different forms and types. A consistent assessment mechanism should be at work, against all process, application and infrastructure threats at all times. This is called Threat Assessment. Now add actionable intelligence, through devices and sensors, which makes it “threat intelligence” focused. Threat Intelligence is the new way forward of comprehensively looking at anticipated cyberattacks on the enterprise. Enterprise security software and services Services address the threats that lurk around the customer’s brand and digital assets and protect them from online abuse and fraud proactively. These software and services offered by Indian Channels monitor and prevent Brand Hijacking, Phishing, Social Media Threats, Spoofed Mobile Sites and Apps. Reinforce these services with forensic analysis and legal enforcements to this, the result is that the threats to your brand are tracked, analysed and quarantined.”
Subbu: “I have handled overall IT transformation projects. Now, what is important is that most people handle all aspects of scalability, but nobody thinks of “security scalability”. The concept of threat intelligence provides that version of scaling to security. Many service providers abroad are repositioning themselves to this fact, and engaging customers.”
5. Endpoint security – back in action
Santosh: “The established Security Software players will do what they are good at – “End point Security. The growth of the mobile devices have become a major factor. BYOD – Bring Your Own Device concept in an enterprise is here to stay. This means that there are a variety of devices in your network accessing critical data. So uniform policy compliance for these devices – Data Leakage Prevention and End point security will become critical. Players like TrendMicro, Symantec, RSA and McAfee, and local players like QuickHeal and Kaspersky are addressing these in various levels. This will grow as the per capita count of the device even within a large enterprise is great than two.”
Subbu: “I agree with Santosh. The major factor is that mobile coming in and cutting the fine line between consumer and the enterprise. This makes the life of the Security Manager so difficult. New variables in terms of vulnerabilities emerge. This is closely tied to the first trend I mentioned − incident response − and the fact that some traditional network-based security controls aren’t as effective as they used to be. Channel players now should plan about consulting their customers in terms of End point security – this is a big opportunity irrespective of the size of the enterprise.”
The change in Enterprise security market is subtle – agree Subbu and Santosh. Santosh adds that the game is changing decisively, but gradually – and most channels, in India will not be able to escape this change. The faster they adopt, the more customer leaning they will have in terms of security software sales and services.
