Beyond Protection: Security as a Business Enabler
In addition to unveiling a new version of a next-generation firewall that enables IT organizations to consolidate security appliances, Cisco this week made it clear that it will deliver security services based on the ThreatGRID security intelligence technology acquired last year.
In addition, Cisco announced that its ThreatGRID security intelligence service has now been integrated with Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) software.
Dean De Beer, Principal Engineer, Security Business Group, says it’s clear that the complexity of IT security has reached a point where most organizations can not only not keep pace; they can’t even find enough IT security professionals to hire. To fill that gap, De Beer says Cisco Incident Response Services is designed to make information security experts available to Cisco customers whenever needed.
At same time, Cisco has unveiled a Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services, which De Beer says helps reduce the complexity of the IT security environment by enabling, for example, intrusion prevention capabilities to be embedded in the firewall.
Given the fact that the unemployment rate for IT professionals with security expertise is essentially a negative number, vendors of almost all types clearly see an opportunity to deliver professional services. On the one hand, that may exacerbate the problem, in that vendors can typically outbid IT organizations for talent. On the other hand, it’s comforting to know that IT security expertise is likely to be more readily available when needed.
