Security evolves to the cloud

Online criminals are overcoming traditional security defences in order to infect more systems in both enterprise and consumer environments.

Rik Ferguson, Trend Micro senior security advisor, claims security technology needs to move to the cloud in order to solve key challenges within cyber crime.

During ITWeb's upcoming Security Summit, Ferguson will reveal how the underground cyber economy has grown and what technology can do to mitigate security threats.

“Criminals are already defeating traditional security technology by simply increasing the sheer volume of malicious code and the frequency with which it is released,” explains Ferguson.

“Moving the protection to a cloud-client architecture means we can offer real-time threat intelligence, globally, and at the same time reduce the demands on the protected end-points.”

According to Ferguson, by putting security solutions in the cloud, Trend Micro has been able to respond faster to the explosion in variants of malware. Additionally, through a feedback loop in its Smart Protection Network, Trend Micro research teams gain instant visibility of new threats as they emerge.

Ferguson says: “Attacks operate on multiple layers; by using cloud-based intelligence, we are able to block a threat as early as possible at the exposure layer by considering the source of the malware as well as the malware itself. By blocking access to malicious URLs or known bad e-mail senders we break the chain of infection at the outset.”

Ferguson believes what cloud computing is doing for servers is what laptops did for desktops. “It is moving them out into the open, and breaking them free from the security perimeter. Similar to the way the proliferation of laptops accelerated the deployment of host-based firewall, anti-virus and anti-malware software, we believe cloud computing will have a similar impact on data centre servers.”

However, Ferguson cautions that virtual machines are open to the same risks as physical machines, plus some special considerations. He says that applying traditional host-based security technology to virtual machines can lead to server resource contention.

“A cloud customer needs to be sure that when they decide to switch providers, all of their data is effectively and permanently removed from their previous provider, this is a serious consideration with far-reaching consequences,” notes Ferguson.