Average Cost of a Data Breach
US $7.2m
Cloudsourcing The infl ux of mobile devices, and moreover, the increasing demands employees place on their employers to allow their personal phones or tablets to be integrated into the corporate network, raise questions about best practices.
Bring your own device, or BYOD as it’s better known in IT circles, will continue as a popular trend in 2012 says Michelle Warren, president of MW Research and Consulting in Toronto.
“How will devices running different platforms, whether it be iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows or whatever it is, play nice with the corporate network so that they’re
Outsourcing business IT security is no more or less of a risk than doing security internally
Etienne Greeff
Germany $4.7m
France $3.1m
UK $3.1m
Australia $2m
Source: Ponemon Institute, ‘2010 Annual Study: Global Cost of a Data Breach’
all speaking the same language?”, Warren rhetorically asks. “Outsourcing that to a third-party vendor can alleviate a lot of headaches, but they also have to make a strong case for cloudsourcing – management and security in the cloud.” A signifi cant challenge for businesses with BYOD policies is meeting data governance requirements without implementing draconian measures like forbidding company data on an employee’s tablet. Not to mention the legal uncertainties of accidentally accessing or deleting personal information on employee-owned devices.
“If the solution causes too much friction for mobile end users, they will fi nd a way around the security solution or not use it at all, which defeats the goals of the security solution in the fi rst place”, Evans says. “Flexible cloud-based software enables corporate security policies to be quickly and easily tailored to different tiers of employees or varying regulatory requirements across international company divisions, from a remote location.”
All Security is Local Both Evans and Greeff agree that outsourcing security cuts the cost of saving
44
and protecting data without the need to invest in new hardware or software. The level of data protection and storage space purchased is also scalable, and vendors and resellers are likely to be on the cusp of how to best integrate mobile devices and telecommuters into the fold.
Except there are some key factors that any large enterprise or medium to small business must take into account, Warren says. Location is one. If the enterprise is based in the UK, but the SaaS operates out of the US, then federal and state laws may apply to the data being stored on American soil, particularly as it relates to the Patriot Act. This is on top of regulatory compliance for the home country as well. Part of the SaaS’s mandate is to ensure compliance, as this is part of the service level agreement with the company that hired them. Except some CIOs and IT managers loathe handing over that much control to another entity, Warren points out. “It’s the lack of internal control and having a ‘partner’ of sorts that adds a layer of complexity to their internal IT management, so it’s worth asking a lot of questions”, she says. “Will the info be available 24/7? What if the server goes
January/February 2012
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