Emirates Group Enhances Security With TippingPoint
Emirates Group has turned to TippingPoint, a division of 3Com, to protect its multinational enterprise with TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS). The company is deploying an array of TippingPoint IPS devices to proactively protect its enterprise network against spyware, worms, Denial of Service floods and other Internet threats. As one of the world’s fastest-growing airlines, flying to 75 destinations in the Middle East and beyond, Emirates Airline uses the IPS solution to safeguard its extensive Internet usage, including communications with airports, its pilots and flight crews.
“Aviation security is too critical to rely only on traditional security solutions such as firewalls and antivirus software,” said Laserian M. Kelly, manager of Information Security for the Emirates Group. “Our industry demands extremely robust precautions to stop hackers and other threats from impacting systems that support services and scheduling. We chose the TippingPoint IPS because it delivers the most comprehensive and preemptive security available without compromising networking performance.”
The TippingPoint IPS prevents a wide range of threats from entering the Emirates Group’s networking infrastructure, which, in addition to Emirates Airline, includes a destination management and leisure division as well as aviation services providers. TippingPoint systems inspect all incoming traffic, permitting only legitimate traffic to enter. Additional TippingPoint devices situated within the network prevent threats at the network core. The IPS is updated regularly with the market-leading TippingPoint Digital Vaccine real-time inoculation service, which delivers filters and vulnerability protection that pre-emptively block new threats.
“On the morning when a new Microsoft vulnerability was recently announced, we received a Digital Vaccine security filter that effectively protected our network against subsequent exploits,” said Kelly. “It is better to apply security proactively rather than reactively, and TippingPoint IPS ensures that we’re protected against the latest threats.”
IT Security Threats From Within
Although organizations have traditionally focused security efforts on external threats posed by the explosive growth of viruses, spam, spyware and blended threats, there is an emerging threat to corporate security that comes from inside the organization.
According to new research from IDC, “Worldwide Outbound Content Compliance 2005-2009 Forecast and Analysis: Content Security Turns Inside Out” (IDC No. 34260), the detection and prevention of outbound content that violates corporate policy and government and industry regulations is critical. This new security market segment, which IDC has termed outbound content compliance (OCC), will swell to $1.9 billion in 2009.
“There is growing demand for solutions that will combat potentially devastating content distribution and violations of government and industry regulations,” said Brian Burke, manager of IDC’s security products and services research. These demands are being met through a range of OCC solutions that monitor, secure/encrypt, filter and block outbound content contained in e-mail, instant messaging, P2P, file transfers, web postings and other types of messaging traffic.
Numerous new regulations have placed unprecedented pressure on corporations to secure the use of their electronic communications. “Addressing the insider threat is becoming more complex,” said Burke. “The increasing use of corporate e-mail, web e-mail, instant messaging, peer-to-peer and other channels for distributing data and the proliferation of mobile devices that allow employees to carry sensitive information outside the organization’s boundaries make the control of outbound content increasingly difficult.”
Other findings from this study include:
• The growing awareness of outbound content compliance has been recently catalyzed by a series of corporate scandals in which customer records, confidential information and intellectual property were leaked.
• An increasing number of organizations are concerned about filtering their outbound e-mail stream for threats such as spam, viruses and spyware. Organizations are concerned that they will face legal liability and brand reputation damage if their customers or partners get “infected” by messages they generate.
• The need to secure business communication such as financial statements, patient health information, intellectual property and other confidential information has fueled the need for secure e-mail solutions.
