Get Smart about Business Spending
John W. Thompson, chairman and CEO of Symantec, used part of his keynote address Tuesday at RSA 2008 to announce the merger of the Cyber Security Industry Alliance and the Information Technology Association of America.
CSIA includes the top security providers and seeks to influence security policy in the U.S. and the European Union; ITAA is a much larger policy group. He said "this will give CSIA a bigger platform and a stronger voice on these critical public policy issues and the ability to work with governments and key stakeholders around the world."
In a press release, ITAA president and CEO Phil Bond said, "The global reach of CSIA, with its Brussels office, will bring valuable new perspective and resources to ITAA's own Information Security program and complement our work with the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA)."
Predicting the future for technology and business is never easy, yet Symantec CEO John Thompson ventured into that Tuesday morning in his keynote speech at RSA 2008.
On the future, Thompson predicted three things: that malicious software will outnumber legitimate software, increasing the need for so-called white listing; that identity management will grow beyond the enterprise and start to include every customer in the world; and digital rights management will be become a reality for all content, not just music and video.
Symantec CEO John Thompson takes the stage at RSA 2008.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)He said businesses need to start thinking about these things now. "I believe this starts with a fundamental shift toward an information-centric view of security," he said. He described this information-centric view of security as taking a risk-based approach to protecting confidential information. Instead of securing all the data, secure only the most important data, he said, adding, "Once you gain insight into how your information is being used, you can begin to set policies that help you mitigate your risks."
Thompson mentioned the growth of mobile devices and stressed the need to become content aware, that just guarding the corporate perimeter isn't enough anymore.
"Ultimately," Thompson concluded, "the work of protecting business information is everybody's job--not just IT's. It's a challenge all of us must tackle in order for our businesses to thrive--to become more agile and high-performing--and to realize the full promise of the connected world."
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