Event

Security 360º seminar

Security gains impetus

The need to focus on security and implement risk management systems was stressed upon by speakers at the Security 360º seminar in New Delhi. The event, organised by Network Magazine in association with Datacraft and Cisco Systems, was an attempt to highlight the importance of security and data management.

According to Ananth P, head—Sales and Marketing, Datacraft India, “Today, there are three primary issues that are gaining momentum among organisations across the country. These are regulatory compliance, risk management and security as a business enabler.” Ananth added that organisations should know how to design, manage and operate security solutions and adopt a collaborative approach to deploy these solutions.

Kerry Lewis, General Manager Security Solutions Datacraft Asia	Ravi Khanchandani, Principal Consultant ITServices, Cisco Systems India

Sanjiv Chaudhary, senior project director, e-Technology Group, IMRB said, “In India, we are now witnessing a true convergence of data, voice and radio and, now, broadband is also becoming a reality. These are signals that IT is booming and corporates are concerned about the need to manage their data. Security plays a vital role in this objective and organisations are investing more on security.”

Chaudhary added that a key concern in India is that there are fewer audits and training and a global perspective means that we need to spend more to educate businesses on the need for security. “If we look at the global trend, we find that organisations spend a large amount of money on technology, education and staffing, but in India this is not happening and is not a good sign. The way technology is changing, it is very important that every organisation understand the importance of security. Education is going to play a vital role and I feel that it is high time organisations start spending money on this front,” Chaudhary pointed out.

According to Keri Lewis, GM—Security Solutions, Datacraft Asia, “Attacks today are more complicated and therefore we should spend more on intelligent software. We have observed that companies are willing to spend on hardware, but when it comes to software, they are confused. They should understand that it is the software that is responsible for keeping their data safe.”

Lewis added that if security is not everywhere, it is no where. “Information security is not something you buy—but something you do. So, we should have a 360 degree approach, get feedback from everybody and cover everything and only then can we be secure,” he said.

Lewis pointed out that being in business is all about risk. Organisations should make efforts to derisk their business. Three things that are absolutely essential for companies are to have a good credit management, supplier management and finally, technical assessment.

“The primary concern for any organisation is to manage their data, and we can only do that by educating and making them understand the impact of security on their organisation,” Lewis said.