Attacking Vulnerability

Though vulnerability threats grab more and more attention, there are not as
many concrete solutions. Dataquest decided to add a few more definitive answers
to security issues in the kitty of CIOs struggling with the challenges. In
association with Websense, Dataquest organized a panel discussion across three
cities (Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore) as an attempt to analyze the security
scenario prevalent in the country and the urgent steps required to make Internet
business more secure.

Mumbai

Taking the Lead

The first leg of the three-city event was held in Mumbai on November 11,
2008 at the Hotel Grand Hyatt. The highlight of the event was the panel
discussionon Securing Internet Business: A New Approach, where CIOs and CISOs
from some prominent organizations in India spoke of the need for data and
information security within their organizations and the challenges faced by them
while deploying Web security measures in the present Web 2.0 scenario.

Ibrahim Ahmad, group editor, Dataquest; Geoff Haggart, sr VP, EMEA & APAC, Websense; Hariharan, sr VP, i-Flex Solutions; Ketan Shah, CIO, Angel Broking; SK Sehgal, GM, IT, State Bank of India; Vishal Salvi, CISO, HDFC Bank; Nadeem Quereshi, CISO, Tata Motors; and Anwer Bagdadi, CTO, Countrywide Financial Services discuss in Mumbai the challenges faced by enterprises in deploying Web security

Ibrahim Ahmed, group editor, ICT publications, Cybermedia set the tone for
the evening by highlighting how data security is gaining center-stage with the
increasing instances of internal and external threats that enterprises face.

This was followed by an insightful presentation by Kaustubh Dhavse, deputy
director, ICT Consulting, Asia Pacific and Middle East, Frost & Sullivan ondata
protection in the Web 2.0 world. Kaustubh spoke of howinformation securitywill
become one of the key enablers and drivers in the years to come primarily
because of the movement towards the Internet enabled platforms. He highlighted
thatthe widely used perimeter-based security systems are not going to help in
the highly complex Web 2.0 scenario. Emphasizing on the need fora better threat
reporting structure within organizations, he said thatthe true extent of cyber
crime in India is due to the lack of the reporting structure.

The next session was delivered by Geoff Haggart,senior vice president, EMEA
and APAC, Websense, where he introduced Websense and its products and services
to the audience. He pointed out that enterprises need to put in place an
end-to-end security solution that can provide Web, messaging, and data security.

Nextin line wasthe much-awaited panel discussion. The panel
comprised a healthy mix of CIOs from the BFSI domain as well as the software
andmanufacturing verticalssuch asSK Sehgal, GM, IT, State Bank of India;
Vishal Salvi, CISO, HDFC Bank; Anwer Bagdadi, CTO, Countrywide Financial
Services; Hariharan, sr VP, i-Flex Solutions; Nadeem Quereshi, CISO, Tata
Motors; and Ketan Shah, CIO, AngelBroking.

The Mumbai audience reiterated the need for selecting the right security vendor and the appropriate security tools

Elaborating more on the need to create internal awareness, Nadeem Quereshi of
Tata Motors explained that a companyfirst needs to be aware of what information
it has in the first place and then determine what information needs to be
classified which makes it easier to create awareness. According to Vishal Salvi
of HDFC Bank, the single point agenda would be to maintain the trust of the
customer, which iscritical to businesses in the BFSI domain.

Giving a different perspective, Ketan Shah, the CIO of Angel Broking said
that apart from awareness and technology tools there is a need to put in place
robust policies and procedures.

Further, the panelists discussed the challenges faced in deploying Web
security the need for enterprises to identify the right securityvendor and
selecttools that align with their processes came out as the strongest point
before the floor was thrown open for questions.

New Delhi

Quantum Leaps in Right Directions

The event in Delhi, hosted at Shangri-la Hotel, saw imminent panelists from
all sectors like Amrit Sethi, DGM-Information Security, IBM India; Atul Kumar,
AGM, IT, Syndicate Bank; Kawaljeet Singh Bhogal, security manager, LG
Electronics; Umesh Gupta, chief, One Airtel IT Operations; Col Ramesh Wahi, CIO,
House of Pearl Fashion; and Athar Haque, president, technology consultant,
eHealth-care Foundation. The audience turnout was far more than expected.

Amrit Sethi, DGM, IS, IBM India; Kaustabh Dhavase, deputy director, ICT Consulting, Frost & Sullivan; Kawaljeet Singh Bhogal, security manager, LG Electronics; Umesh Gupta, chief, IT operations, One Airtel; Atul Kumar, AGM, IT, Syndicate Bank; Geoff Haggart, sr VP, EMEA & APAC, Websense; Athar Haque, president, technology consultant, eHealth-Care Foundation; and Col Ramesh Wahi, CIO, House of Pearl Fashion concluded in Delhi that an ideal security policy should integrate people, processes and technologies

The evening started with a speech by Kaustubh Dhavse of Frost & Sullivan.
Dhavse emphasized on the changing nature of the security threats and explained
how vulnerability has taken a quantum leap in the organizational setup. The
speech was followed by an address by Geoff Haggart of Websense, who elucidated
upon the various Websense products that can better equip organizations to tackle
their security challenges.

The discussion was moderated by Rajneesh De, associate editor, Dataquest, and
saw some serious issues being discussed.

The panelists pondered upon the questions of regulation and what it can do to
promote safe transactions over the Internet. All voiced the need for a
regulatory setup and Singh hit the nerve of the matter when he pointed out that
an ideal security policy should integrate people, processes and technologies.

Various other issues like customer security, nature of transactions, and
integration of security tools, etc, were contemplated and debated upon before
the discussion was thrown open to the audience. Before the end, there was the
obvious issue of recession and its effects on the security investment. And
melodious were the words in which each CIO echoed, in the most definitive terms,
that security is always a top priority and recession or not, investments in that
area are not be compromised or put on a back-foot.

Bangalore

All Against Relentless Attacks

The panel discussion at Bangalore started with presentations by Kaushtav
Dhavse of Frost & Sullivan and Geoff Haggart of Websense. While Dhavase spoke
about how data protection has evolved over a period of time and what has been
the consequence of the nature of the threat when moving from conventional models
to the models that exist. Jeff Haggart shared his view on how Websense has
changed over the years into a Web security company and also elaborated on some
of the security trends across the enterprises. Earlier, Sudesh Prasad, associate
editor, Dataquest gave the opening address.

The participating panelists in Bangalore included Kaustubh Dhavse, deputy
director, ICT Consulting, Frost & Sullivan; Natarajan, CIO, Hexaware
Technologies; Jawahar Malhotra, CTO, Yahoo! India R&D Sudesh Prasad, associate
editor, Dataquest; Prasad CVG, CIO, ING Vysya; and Geoff Haggart, senior vice
president, EMEA and APAC, Websense.

Sudesh Prasad started the discussion with a background into challenges that
enterprises are facing in protecting important information. Jawahar Malhotra of
Yahoo! India R&D spoke of how Yahoo! is facing challenges in protecting user
information and the kinds of attacks they are being subjected to. He
specifically mentioned denial of service attacks and even distributed denial of
attacks. Jawahar also said that attacks have graduated from traditional types to
more sophisticated ones like code injection.

The delegates assembled in Delhi were assured that notwithstanding recessionary trends, most enterprises are not contemplating compromising on security investments

Giving an enterprise perspective, Prasad CVG of ING Vysya talked about the
necessity of Internet banking and how it is a way of reducing transaction costs.
He also agreed with Jawahar of Yahoo! on the new types of attacks and also spoke
about the most frequent attacks like phishing and how the bank deals with them.

Kaustabh Dhavase, deputy director, ICT Consulting, Frost & Sullivan; Natarajan, CIO, Hexaware Technologies; Jawahar Malhotra, CTO, Yahoo! India R&D Sudesh Prasad, associate editor, Dataquest; Prasad CVG, CIO, ING Vysya; and Geoff Haggart of Websense discuss in Bangalore how attacks too have become sophisticated

Natarajan of Hexaware explained how Web 2.0 has changed the perception of
threats and how his organization is using security policies to protect against
attacks. He is of the view that enterprises can buy a technology but that does
not guarantee protection.

The august gathering in Bangalore discuss the security issues involved in the nascent emerging area of Web 2.0

Haggart of Websense elaborated about how solution vendors are trying to keep
pace with the new types of attacks. He also mentioned that there are
organizations that are not adequately protected as new threat activities happen.

Priya Kakre & Mehak Chawla

priyak@cybermedia.co.in