Security World 2008 - Morning Day 2

This morning had a series of presentations on security systems with a theme of evolving threats.
We heard from Nortel how the network has traditionally been used for data sharing, transport and storage. However, many networks are now having to cope with the delivery of IP telephony (VoIP) and multimedia applications. This is a new challenge as it is harder to secure with traditional firewalls and as Georg Krause (CE-Infosys) pointed out, is a blessing to spies; they only need to monitor one network, and the voice data is already digitised.
One recommended practice is to create virtual LANs and segregate the data from the voice/multimedia component to provide security and network availability. The general consensus during this conference is that data encryption is vital, even within the trusted zone of a network. Sukhdev Singh from IBM ISS outlined the three generations of security threats (1 viruses, 2 spyware & bots, 3 rootkits phishing & targeted attacks) and highlighted the fact that most companies security only addresses the first two generations. He then proceeded to scare the pants of everyone by highlighting the increasing use of embedded OS's (windows and linux) in vending machines, elevators, medical instruments and multi-function laser printers and then gave a case study of how an entire network was brought down by a snack vending machine!

by tobyonline