The Hindu Business Line : Bring threads of security together

When computers are connected to the Internet, there will always be somebody who would be interested to lay his hands on precious resources such as data, network or even control of the machines. In the real world, machines don't fight back. Naturally, security compromises occur.

As an entrepreneur or technology head, when you sit down with your technical team to pinpoint how the intruder got in, it could be that one of your employees unintentionally `left one door' open just enough just enough open for someone to swoop in. The problem occurs when there are many doors and hence each doorkeeper has to be alert. This is where convergence to a single solution comes handy. "

A unified threat management (UTM) is the single answer to all these and many more such worries," says Mr Sunil Sapra, Country Manager (India & SAARC) of Watchguard Technologies, New Delhi.

The 12-year old company is in the business of providing gateway security solutions to about 5,000 customers in India.

"Though the security awareness in India has caught up fast, we do not say that we are into Internet security business; we rather say Internet security is our business," remarked Mr Sapra while interacting with eWorld Business Line eWorld recently.

Among Watchguard's prominent customers are names such as McDonald's, PVR Cinemas, IIM Bangalore, Fullerton India, NIIT and Shriram Group.

Excerpts from the interview.

What is unified threat management (UTM) in simple terms?

In brief, UTM is about simplifying your security management.

UTM helps organisations handle all security threats through the deployment of a single, easy-to-manage, low-TCO (total cost of ownership), and a very high return on investment (ROI) solution.

In the information technology (IT) industry, we have rarely seen new technologies completely replacing older technologies but yet it does provide a much more improved solution.

If I may explain it in terms of the current IPL fever, a UTM is like a Shane Warne.

He has proven to be the most valuable player considering what his acquisition cost was, how easy it is to motivate him to perform, he adds great value as a bowler, he is a match-winning batsman, a fantastic fielder and is available when you need him most!

The point is that solutions for anti-spam, firewalls, and URL filter are still doing a great job but it is up to an IT team to decide what its needs are and how they can effectively be handled by a single solution.

Take us through the trends in threat management and especially its cost-effectiveness.

I would want to be more specific here. We understand that security is a serious business and that UTMs will continue to grow much faster than rest of the industry because of the sheer value that UTM solutions bring to the customer.

A good solution is all about price-performance.

To help the growth of UTM, we are regularly adding newer and better features to our solutions.

Some of these solutions were earlier considered to be "enterprise-class" only and generally considered to be very high-TCO to acquire.

How have governments been responding to security products?

The Government of India is doing its bit for the industry and giving shape to laws and regulations regarding the sector.

They have taken several initiatives at the national level, like the setting up of "Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)" for securing Indian cyber space in 2004.

The IT Act, 2000 was also amended to include issues such as like cyber security. , etc.

What is the market size for the industry globally and in India?

According to a Frost & Sullivan report, "The integrated security appliance market for the first three quarters of 2007 was $31.6 million.

The total market size for financial year 2007 is expected to cross $40 million".

The major trend in the IT security market is the convergence of technologies happening in this space.

As per the IDC, the total security market in India for the financial year 2006-07 was estimated to be around Rs 210 crore.

The projected growth between 2005 and 2010 is about 29 per cent CAGR in the software, 34 per cent CAGR in the appliance, and 28 per cent CAGR in the services sector.

What are the economics of protection that a typical Chief Information Officer or Chief Technology Officer considers when going in for a security product?

If I put myself in a CIO's shoes, the top things in my mind while acquiring any technology will be:

How well does it help in achieving my organisation's objectives? Next, how easy is it for my team to learn and manage it?

Then, what is the TCO over three/five years, and is it scalable/ upgradeable to handle my future requirements? The last questions on my mind would be: whether there is a tangible ROI associated, how is the assessment of the support, and so on.

WatchGuard UTM appliances, you state, can inspect all seven layers of the OSI model. Can you explain?

The OSI model consolidates network communications into seven simplified layers, viz. Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data link and Physical.

These relate to how the data gets processed in a network communication.

All WatchGuard UTM appliances use our application proxy firewall technology, which is fundamentally more secure than competitive offerings that rely on packet filtering alone.

Packet filtering only inspects the bottom three-to-four layers of the OSI communication model (physical, data link, network and transport), leaving several layers, including layer-7, the application layer, vulnerable to exploitation.

By enforcing deep packet inspection in concert with its application proxy firewall technology, our appliances can inspect all seven layers of the OSI model.

dmurali@thehindu.co.in

www.InterviewInsights.blogspot.com