Protecting Borderless Networks
Volume 9
Protecting Borderless Networks
Guest Editorial by Aubrey Merchant-Dest , Federal CTO , Symantec
Champions Edition
Living in a world of borderless networks means that agencies need a number of cybersecurity tools at their disposal . The first , as always , is workforce training that pushes employees to follow cybersecurity best practices .
Without employees that practice good cyber hygiene , government agencies will struggle to remain secure no matter what steps they take . The next step is to think about securing data endto-end . That means securing the data from the second it is captured through its life in the technology ecosystem .
Aubrey Merchant-Dest
Think back to the old days of computer security for a minute and it may bring a laugh . With no laptops , no tablets , no smartphones , even no Internet , protecting data on government computers centered on hiring a good overnight security guard .
To do this , agencies must think about the way data exists and the points it travels from . The data must be protected at each of these points from the end user to the network to the cloud and each step in between .
While there are no physical borders to the network anymore , each agency does feature a universe in which the data lives .
Oh , how things have changed .
The idea behind a borderless network has grown as technology develops . In the early days of computing , networks were singular entities with distinct borders that could be protected with simple cybersecurity best practices . As technology improved that network grew . Laptops allowed employees to move outside the confines of the office . Wireless Internet allowed employees to log on more places .
Cloud computing made applications and data available anywhere . Smart phones enhanced the ways people could access all of that information . With each addition work became more convenient , but the network became more complex .
Borderless Networks Require Robust Security
( Symantec discovered more than 430 million new unique pieces of malware in 2015 , up 36 percent from the year before . Remarkably , these numbers no longer surprise us . Attacks against businesses and nations hit the headlines with such regularity that we ’ ve become numb to the sheer volume and acceleration of cyber threats . Symantec ’ s 2016 Internet Security Threat Report )
Think Mobile and Other Endpoints The newest devices tend to also cause administrators the most problems . Mobile devices , for all their utility , do present a host of security options . Agency IT leaders must take extra steps to ensure mobile security .
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