Virtualization and Cloud executives share their predictions for 2015. Read them in this VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed article by Chris Webber, cloud evangelist, senior product marketing manager at Centrify
Breach Headlines will Change IT Security Spend
2014 has proven that hackers are changing their
attack strategies to focus on stealing credentials so they can steal
data from within. These attacks are clever, because no amount of
firewalling or traditional web security can block authorized access.
Since
these attacks will continue in 2015, we need to focus on limiting their
effectiveness - and that means focusing on identity and access
management.
Millions
of business servers are wide open today - as long as you have the right
username and password - and criminals and hackers have perfected
techniques for harvesting those credentials.
We
know accounts will continue to be compromised, but we can limit what
those accounts have access to. We can require stronger authentication,
so a username and password is no longer enough to gain access. We can
monitor and alert to know when access is gained from unusual places,
networks, or devices.
2015
will see increased exposure, which will lead to increased attention
from IT, and the security industry, which will lead to increased
spending on identity-based security solutions to limit risk and lock
down access.
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About the Author
Chris
Webber is a security wonk, a cloud evangelist, a product guy, and a
recovering IT professional. Having spent time at both Silicon Valley
startups and global powerhouses, Chris developed his particular slant on
cloud and mobile security at companies like Zscaler, Blue Coat Systems,
Good Technology, and Pertino. He currently serves as senior product
market manager at Centrify,
the leading provider of unified identity management across cloud,
mobile and data center environments that delivers single sign-on (SSO)
for users and a simplified identity infrastructure for IT.