Security vendors must work together pleads expert

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Companies in the security industry must work more closer if businesses are to be better protected against cyber threats, warned an expert.

Ray Stanton, global head of BT's business continuity, security and governance practice said that the security industry must develop more collaborative technologies in order to safeguard corporate infrastructure from hackers and criminals.

"Modern networks now allow industry rivals to share data to ward off fraud; businesses from different sectors are teaming up to co-develop products; extended supply chains are automating more shared processes to create efficiencies," said Stanton. "This way of working, combined with the other trends, throws up serious implications for security, but it also offers valuable lessons for security vendors."

He said there were four important trends that are having a significant bearing on the security problems businesses faced in the next five years. These were convergence, flexible working, the regulatory environment, and collaboration itself.

Also, Stanton said that collaboration and the worker's ability to access the corporate network from anywhere and at any time is causing a "seismic shift".

He said the task of bringing all of these networks, devices and businesses together is made significantly harder by the lack of open standards-based security solutions.

"End users know that in order to effectively and securely seize the opportunities of the new world order, common standards and technologies are needed."

Stanton said that without these open standards, the job of configuring disparate systems to automatically gauge risk levels, and of allowing supplier and partner devices to communicate with a firm's IT network is made significantly harder.

"Many vendors continue to launch proprietary tools, despite the customer appetite for interoperable products. Vendors would do well to jump on the 'collaborative' bandwagon not only because they have a duty to offer the best protection possible to their customers, but because it may also be critical to their own long-term survival."

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