Current estimates of the crowd size this year is somewhere between 45-50,000—very likely record-breaking numbers. It’s really no wonder given how much cybersecurity has become the focus in our everyday lives. Certainly, the news events of this year involving the 2016 elections, massive DDoS attacks, and high profile ransomware incidents served to influence much of the proceedings. These real-world examples have showed up in conference presentations and in the narratives vendors wrap into their new offerings.
Overheard while walking through the North Expo hall was one executive whose badge read a multi-national pharmaceutical company. “Yeah, I know I need to move us completely to the cloud,” he said. “Problem is I don’t have the people that will allow me to do just that.”
Among the vendors we talked to today were new solutions for cloud security, malicious code isolation techniques, evaluating open source software for security issues, and challenges surrounding securing a mobile workforce.
Check Point Software Technologies just released its 2017 Cyber Security Survey, and it highlights the angst that many CISOs express regarding meeting the challenges of today’s security environment and the priorities of their organizations in the areas of cloud and mobile security. In a far-ranging discussion with Donald Meyer, Check Point’s Head of Product Marketing, Data Center Security, it was obvious that product suppliers are working hard to not only develop solutions but help their customers rethink their processes and approaches.
“Customers want a 'golden config' but that doesn’t exist today,” Meyer admitted. But collecting more data and disseminating that knowledge across the industry is going to help deal with today’s threats and anticipate those over the horizon, he said. He cited the coming together of companies under the Cyber Threat Alliance as a great step in this direction.
The folks at Syncplicity bring a flexible solution to securing the cloud and allowing CISOs to ensure their organizations’ ability to share files in several ways and still sleep well at night. Brian Levine, Senior Director of Security and Compliance at Syncplicity, pointed to how Siemen’s 350,000 users utilize their solutions to secure their data across their global operations.
We caught up with Guy Guzner, CEO of Israeli start-up Fireglass, who discussed how their approach to “isolating the threats” is a better way of dealing with users’ sometimes careless habits in surfing the web. So far, many of their current client base are Fortune 50 companies.
Do you know how much of your code can be traced to open source? Well, according to Black Duck Software’s Michael Pittenger, VP of Security Strategy, it’s somewhere around 35%. Since open source software is so prevalent and is often a major component of DevOps’ final product, Black Duck identified a real need in the market to help technology teams stay on top of where the vulnerabilities may lurk.
As we swing into Day 3, we take our sore feet back onto the Expo floor to keep reporting back. See you in the aisles….
Read the Day 1 recap here.
