Six Burning Questions About Network Security

IT security keeps getting trickier by the minute, and today’s professionals are tackling some tougher questions than ever before. Do you know how to answer the six most important questions about network security?

In an article on the Network World website, Ellen Messmer examines six security issues that she says “are certainly capable of lighting a fire under IT professionals at a moment’s notice.” She outlines the issues, and advises readers to “handle with care.”

The six questions are:

1. Is server virtualization worth the risk? According to the experts Messmer spoke with, virtual-machine (VM) backup can bring security gaps and virtual-server sprawl, not to mention risks that draw fire from auditors.
2. Does stopping data leaks lure lawyers? Organizations are now finding that data-loss prevention is shedding a bit too much light into the darker corners of the public network, opening them to regulatory and legal peril.
3. In-the-cloud security: Dreamy or dangerous? In-the-cloud services, like those for e-mail, denial-of-service protection and Web filtering, are an alternative to do-it-yourself security, but they carry a lot of risks.
4. Will Microsoft ever get security right? That’s a tough question, Messmer says, and the software giant is caught in a conundrum. But while it’s easy to pick on the company, the experts tell Messmer the products are getting more secure.
5. NAC: Is your firewall enough? Network access control (NAC) isn’t for everybody, but it can be a valuable tool for controlling the circumstances under which individuals gain network access. If businesses have a diverse set of full-time employees, contractors and guests that use their networks regularly, NAC can help assure that the devices they use to connect meet configuration policies.
6. Has IT licked patch management? Patch and vulnerability management tools can take on detecting and protecting vulnerable machines in a mostly static, controlled environment. But vendors could still ease the process by building in time for users to properly test patches before rolling them out across distributed machines.

To read the full article, click here: www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=
viewArticleBasic&articleId=9094258&pageNumber=1