Indian Cos Not Confident In Detecting And Preventing Security Threats

Juniper Networks, the network innovation service provider, has announced the findings of a new Ponemon Institute report, which revealed that on average the security posture of Indian organisations surveyed is only 4.7 based on a scale of 10 being very effective.

The Efficacy of Emerging Network Security Technologies study, commissioned globally by Juniper Networks, shows securing web traffic is by far the most significant network security concern for the majority of organisations (64 percent) surveyed. However, less than half (46 percent) of respondents agreed that emerging network security technologies are not as effective as they should be and do not minimise attacks that bring down web applications or block unwarranted Internet traffic.

This report uncovered key concerns and security threats that the 554 Indian IT and IT security professionals surveyed encounter at their companies on a daily basis, with theft of their organisation’s intellectual property being one of the top security concerns that keeps them up at night.

“Security remains a major concern among organisations. The Ponemon Institute report reveals that even emerging network security technologies are not as effective as they should be. Companies need to review their security investment weighting, to assess whether the areas of greatest risk are receiving adequate attention and how they can address serious security threats,” said, Ravi Chauhan, Managing Director India and SAARC, Juniper Networks.

Organisations Believe That Their Emerging Network Technologies Only Partly Address Their Security Concerns

• 63 percent of those surveyed say emerging network security technologies only address part of the security threats facing their organisations.

• Majority of the respondents (55 percent) surveyed say that their organisations prioritise emerging network security technologies to curtail inside-out threats rather than a more holistic approach to security.

• 50 percent say blocking of IP addresses in not an effective security measure.

Organisations Are Critical Of Their Network Security Posture; Rate Them Below Average In Detecting And Preventing Cyber Attacks

• On average, respondents say the security posture of their organisation is only 4.7 based on a scale of 10 being very effective.

• 52 percent of the respondents say emerging network security technologies used by their organisations are dependent upon the in-house personnel who possess the knowledge and expertise to operate them effectively.

• Respondents rated their organisations’ ability to quickly detect and prevent cyber-attacks as fair or 4.8 and 4.6, respectively, on a scale of 10 being excellent.

Efficacy Of Emerging Network Security Technologies Is Influenced By The Complexities Involved In Configuring Policies For WAF

• Only half of the respondents say their organisations use emerging network security technologies to heighten visibility to applications and the use of cloud services.

• Respondents surveyed do not deploy or are unsure about Web Application Firewalls (61 percent) (WAFs) because they think it might affect revenues as the high incidence of false positives may block legitimate customer traffic.

• Majority (79 percent) of the respondents say that is takes them at least a few weeks to configure and update rules or policies for WAF.

To effectively secure datacentres Juniper Networks believes companies must have knowledge of the attacking devices, not just the IP address, and quickly disseminate that intelligence across the datacentre and into the network. Juniper Networks can deliver this intelligence through its Junos Spotlight Secure global attacker intelligence service, which acts as the consolidation point for attacker and threat information, feeding real-time intelligence to Juniper’s security solutions. The first products to leverage Spotlight Secure security intelligence are Junos WebApp Secure and Juniper Networks SRX Series Services Gateways.

“Respondents in Australia, China, India and Japan share common challenges in securing their organisations’ networks such as web-based attacks and denial of service attacks. It is interesting to observe that despite being armed with emerging network security technologies, organisations in Asia Pacific find themselves to be sitting ducks for external threats. Organisations need to reflect on the shortcomings of their existing inside-out approach and seriously consider investing in a more comprehensive and holistic approach to network security in order to keep pace with a constantly evolving threat landscape,” said Larry Ponemon, Ph.D., Chairman and Founder, Ponemon Institute.