RSA Attendees State the Obvious During Floor Survey (Brief)

Last week at the RSA Conference, nCircle surveyed 205 people about their thoughts on various security measures and their effectiveness against state-sponsored attacks. The survey focused on endpoint protections and perimeter defenses.

Accordingly, 59% of respondents say firewalls are no longer effective against those types of attacks; 48% said antivirus software isn’t effective; and 39% said intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) are no longer effective. If anything, this proves that some of the people attending RSA last week had some sort of clue when it comes to taking on the challenge of stopping a motivated attacker.

These days, it isn’t about stopping the attack – often you can’t no matter what you do, or it is just a matter of time and if a criminal wants you they’ll get you. Security is about responding faster, mitigating damage, and recovery and business continuity. Stopping the small fish is still part of the game, but from there, intelligence on the network is the only way you can tell if there are sharks in your pond.

“Security professionals know we live in a world where state sponsored attacks are common and they also know that many legacy security systems that are updated after exploits or malware become public knowledge are no longer effective against these attacks,” noted Lamar Bailey, director of security research and development.

“Plugging in a firewall, IPS, or IDS and setting auto update doesn’t offer enough protection against sophisticated cyber attacks,” Bailey said.  “IT security professionals know they can no longer sit passively on the sidelines and assume security technology wil protect them.”

Related Insight: Advanced Threat Protection & Visibility: Nation States