Cisco show highlights ways to cut business security risks

The second day of Cisco Live Show 2013 in London was marked by three main security announcements, aiming to ensure unified access and privacy.
The main topics were: Accelerating BYOD (bring your own device) and mobility, enabling the Internet of everything, and dividing the next generation IT transformation.
Rob Soderbery, senior vice president and general manger, Enterprise Networking Group, Cisco, introduced Cisco’s Unified Access.
He said: “The Unified Access is business foundation for the Internet of Everything (the next big foundational priority for Cisco), and what we’re doing to provide networking solutions to make connectivity for ‘The Internet of Things a reality.”
According to Soderbery, Unified Access empowers the next generation IT, allowing IT organizations to spend less time dealing with redundant.
“Day-to-day IT operations and administration of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trends, mobile device and connectivity problems — and instead — address networking needs that are enabling innovation and smarter business processes within the company. However, Unified Access is Cisco’s number one in business priority for the company’s core foundational networking business this year,” he said.
One of the most important keynotes that took place during Cisco Live show 2013 was the one on Technology Solutions presented by Rob Soderbery.
Despite popular assumptions that security risks increase as a person’s online activity becomes shadier, findings from Cisco’s 2013 Annual Security Report (ASR) reveal that the highest concentration of online security threats do not target pornography, pharmaceutical or gambling sites as much as they do legitimate destinations visited by mass audiences, such as major search engines, retail sites and social media outlets.
“In fact, Cisco found that online shopping sites are 21 times as likely, and search engines are 27 times as likely to deliver malicious content than a counterfeit software site. Online advertisements are 182 times likely to deliver malicious content than pornography,” said Soderbery.
He added: “Security risks rise in businesses because many employees adopt “my way” work lifestyles in which their devices, work and online behavior mix with their personal lives virtually anywhere — in the office, at home and everywhere in between. The business security implications of this “consumerization” trend are magnified by a second set of findings from the Cisco Connected World Technology Report (CCWTR), which provides insight into the attitudes of the world’s next generation of workers, Generation Y.”
According to the study, most Generation Y employees believe the age of privacy is over (91 percent), but one-third say that they are not worried about all the data that is stored and captured about them.
They are willing to sacrifice personal information for socialization online.
In fact, more Generation Y workers globally said they felt more comfortable sharing personal information with retail sites than with their own employers’ IT departments — departments that are paid to protect employee identities and devices.
As Generation Y graduates from college and enters the workforce in greater numbers, they test corporate cultures and policies with expectations of social media freedom, device choice, and mobile lifestyles that the generations before them never demanded.
“Generation Y is constantly checking social media, e-mail and text updates, whether it’s in bed (3 of 4 surveyed globally), at the dinner table (almost half), in the bathroom (1 of 3), or driving (1 of 5).
That lifestyle is entering work environments in greater numbers, spotlighting the future of work and how companies must consider competing for the next wave of talent. Unfortunately, what the security studies show is the next-generation workforce’s lifestyles are also introducing security challenges that companies have never had to address on this scale,” he said.
Statistics issued by Cisco confirm that most Gen Y respondents do not trust websites to protect personal information (75 percent), such as credit card and personal contact details, their lack of confidence does not deter their online behavior, gambling that they will not be compromised.
This puts a large amount of pressure on companies when these individuals take risks online with work devices on corporate networks.
According to the statistics, 57 percent of Gen Y is comfortable with their personal information being used by retailers, social media sites, and other online properties if they will benefit from the experience.
John N. Stewart, senior vice president, chief security officer, Global Government and Corporate Security, Cisco, confirmed that each year, the security threats and defenses change as a result of one another.
“The Cisco Annual Security Report is our expert research, highlighting global threat patterns and trends. When combined with findings from the Cisco Connected World Technology Report and how the next-generation workforce views security, there are unique, troubling and informative correlations and conclusions.
Today, we live a blended work-personal life.
The hackers know this, and the security threats that we encounter online such as embedded Web malware while visiting popular destinations like search engines, retailers, social media sites and smart phone/tablet apps no longer threaten only the individual; they threaten our organizations by default.
This year’s ASR highlights this and other trends while providing the hard data, and ideas, for how we should be approaching security today.”
According Cisco’s fact sheet, In 2012, there was significant change in the global landscape of where users encountered Web malware.
China dropped from being the second-most malware-stricken country in 2011 to the sixth spot last year.
Scandinavian countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, experienced greater numbers of Web malware encounters, climbing the world ranking to the third and fourth spots, respectively.
The US retained the top spot with 33 percent of the world’s Web malware encounters.