Peer to Peer Magazine

case studies resident agent on the workstation and place the machine under the control of the security team, at which point we will see what a potential attacker could see if a machine is compromised in this fashion. The goal of this program is to raise awareness among both the users and management on the importance of end user security awareness training. Bridging the Security/ Business Divide As many organizations have discovered, layered security comes with hidden costs. This includes IT staff or paid consultants who can install, update and manage the products, experts to fine-tune configurations, and still others to monitor and make sense of the products' often voluminous output. What an organization really needs instead is a single vision of a security infrastructure that cuts through the noise and helps IT staff understand what's happening, why and what actions to take. Above all, both security and IT teams need to derive value from security investments they've already made — and be able to report clear, concise and constructive threat intelligence to executive management. A predictive security intelligence platform is a new approach that can identify critical risks within your organization based on unique internal processes, business objectives and regulatory mandates. It can help achieve this through advanced attack simulations with real-world security testing, and should work in tandem with asset management tools and vulnerability scanners. In addition, real-time analytics provided by a predictive security intelligence platform transform the raw and disparate output of security tools into correlated, actionable information — allowing your IT staff to both get ahead and stay ahead of the threat. Even the most sophisticated IT infrastructures can fall victim to attacks that spread by way of undocumented test and development servers, rogue wireless access points and other shadow infrastructures. A predictive security intelligence platform can map and analyze the IT infrastructure to both reveal and track assets, including those not previously known to exist. At the same time, it can automatically sense and adjust to changes in the infrastructure and map how newly deployed devices connect with existing IT assets. IT security is often separated from the rest of the business, including operations, the front office and business objectives. By protecting all of the information that lives, moves or rests within an IT infrastructure, an organization — by bridging that divide — can produce measurable improvements in customer retention, decrease the costs related to compliance and protect the brand. IT staff should focus their energy on analyzing and remediating threats, or implementing new security controls, while requiring far fewer full-time equivalents and person- hours to manage those products. Automating the process of identifying exposures and potential threats in the IT environment will increase the speed, reach and consistency of the entire vulnerability management process. Jeff Kunz is a Security Engineer at Foley & Lardner, LLP. He has been in the IT field for 17 years, with a focus on information security for the last seven. Jeff's specialty is in offensive security –– penetration testing, exploit development, reverse engineering and vulnerability assessment. He uses these skills to identify and correct weaknesses in network architecture, applications and systems. His certifications include CISSP, CEH, CEPT, MCSE, GWAS, MCSA, GCWN and CREA. He can be contacted at jkunz@foley.com. 36 Peer to Peer

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