Securing data in a shifting landscape

As computing delves deeper into territories such as the cloud andsophisticated mobile devices, Symantec tries to ensure its safety

FOR SYMANTEC chief executive Enrique Salem, running one of theworld's largest security companies has brought him in a full careercircle.

As a young computer science graduate from Dartmouth, his firstjob was with Peter Norton Computing, a firm that was acquired bySymantec in 1990, bringing him indirectly to work for the company.Eventually, he became Symantec's first chief technology officer.

He left the company to pursue a number of other opportunities,including as a stint as vice-president of technology and operationsat search site Ask Jeeves and, more recently, as chief executive ofBrightmail, the anti-spam software company.

When Brightmail was acquired by Symantec in 2004, Salem wasbrought back into the fold of the company he initially joined almosta quarter of a century previously.

Before succeeding John Thompson as chief executive in 2009, hehad most recently held the role of chief operations officer. That initself was unusual in corporate America: Thompson, one of the fewblack chief executives leading a major corporation, was followed byan Hispanic chief executive.

In Ireland this week to announce 60 new jobs ("to start with" hesays) in authentication services at Symantec's Dublin headquarters,Salem needs no prompting to launch into a discussion of developmentsin technology and security issues.

By any measure, it's a good moment for Symantec. In between therecent spate of high-profile hacking attempts at the InternationalMonetary Fund, Citigroup, RSA, Lockheed, and Sony (to name only afew), and serious concern about identity theft and financial fraudfor the average computer user, the company can only benefit from ajustified security paranoia.

Salem highlights several "big trends" in computing, all of whichhave security elements. Cloud computing - the move towards accessingservices, software and data through remote data centres, rather thenholding them on in-house servers - is one of the biggestdevelopments, he says.

"With the cloud, the real concern is, if I put data into a datacentre, how do I know it's secure?

"Companies are not so worried about the connection between theend-user and the service, but instead, it's 'is my data secure, andwho has access to it?'."

Governance is also an issue, with companies concerned aboutwhether they will be able to report accurately on what is happeningin someone else's data centre, as opposed to data held on their ownservers. And companies worry about the availability of data,especially after the recent high-profile outage of cloud servicesfrom one of the biggest providers, Amazon.

Symantec has a corporate interest in cloud computing that goesbeyond providing some of the tools that enable people to securedata.

Salem says the company delivers 16 global services from the cloudand so it needs to manage the same elements as its customers.

Another major trend is what Salem calls "consumerisation" - thehuge growth in personal devices such as smartphones and tabletcomputers that people want to connect to their corporate network.The corporate landscape has turned into one of "bring your owndevices", Salem says.

Until recently, the company had not focused much on security inthe mobile area, mainly because initial concerns about viruses andother threats failed to materialise. But research at Symantec'ssecurity centre in Dublin has picked up mobile phone malware "in thewild" - on decoy devices on actual networks. That has helped movedmobile security to a priority.

The reason mobiles have suddenly become of interest to fraudstersis simple - far more people have more complex mobiles such assmartphones, which have Internet access and therefore are more opento worms, viruses, and other malware.

"Until a system has critical mass, it doesn't become a target.

"The tipping point is usually about 15 per cent utilisation. By2014, analysts are predicting there will be 10 billion smart devicesconnected to the network. That makes a better target for criminals,"Salem says.

The area is so important to Symantec that Salem says it will bemaking acquisitions of mobile security companies to more quicklybroaden security offerings for mobile devices.

Finding solutions means balancing privacy against security tomanage devices in some way that does not require controlling orhaving access to people's personal information on the device.Instead, the solution will lie in policing the way in which itconnects to corporate networks.

Other "tipping point" systems include tablet computers - "Thisyear, they're predicting 80 million tablets will be sold and thatmakes them a target" - and Apple Mac computers, which for years hadvirtually no major virus threats because hackers preferred thericher pickings of the much larger PC user base.

Macs have been growing in market share too and are now of greaterinterest to hackers.

Salem is also concerned with the developing area of cyber threatsand cyber warfare, which he considers a very serious securityproblem.

Seen as a theoretical issue for a long time, cyber threats arenow real, he says, noting the success of the recent attack on anIranian nuclear plant using the Stuxnet worm, which shut down itsuranium enrichment programme.

"Clearly whoever did it was very calculated, sophisticated, andwell-funded." He says he talks to many governments who can point tomore data that show such threats "are real" and not science fiction.

Although Symantec reduced jobs at its Dublin operations by 138last year to its current 725 headcount, Salem says Ireland has beena good place for Symantec to run a business.

"We came to Dublin in 1991. The IDA made Ireland the place whereit was easy to come in and build big companies. There's justtremendous access to talent here."

Is he concerned about European attempts to force Ireland to giveup its 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate? He chooses his wordscarefully.

"I'm pretty bullish on the prospects here. While there aretemporary disruptions, I think the economy will recover quickly. Asfor imposing external pressure, I'd hate to see changes made for atemporary economic situation," he says.

"Frankly, I'd like to see other countries make that effort tosupport companies. Ireland does that really well."

As for his own job, he is clearly enjoying running a company thatwas pivotal to his early career path.

"I started here in 1990 when I was 24. It's very satisfying tosee a company go from a thousand to 20,000 people. And quitefrankly, this is a fabulous job. We have such an opportunity to makean impact."