Technology headlines in recent months have been dominated by high-profile breaches, hacks and embarrassing lapses in corporate security.
Now-infamous hacker groups like LulzSec and Anonymous have been attacking companies seemingly every day just to broadcast the vulnerability of their networks. Major breaches have recently occurred at Sony, Nintendo, Lockheed Martin (News - Alert), RSA and even the U.S. Senate's website.
These hacks have forced many companies to take a better look at the reliability of their own networks by partnering with security testing companies. TMC (News - Alert) CEO Rich Tehrani recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk with an expert in this field at Cloud Expo 2011 to learn a little bit more about what these companies can provide.
Kim Legelis, VP of marketing at CORE-Security Technologies, says that network security testing is necessary for companies to recognize and eliminate their vulnerabilities and weaknesses. These solutions replicate the work of hackers so that companies can identify the holes in their network defense before it's too late.
“What we want people to know is that they should be testing their systems in the same way that hackers are testing them every day,” Legelis told Tehrani.
“It's really important for companies to be proactive and find out whether their systems, Web applications and clients are vulnerable so that they can get ahead of the threats and fix the problems before the bad guys find them,” she added.
Legelis said that financial institutions are particularly vulnerable to hacks due to the nature of their work. She noted that 94 percent of last year's data records breaches involved financial institutions.
Tehrani and Legelis wrapped up their talk by touching on the future of CORE-Security Technologies. Legelis said that the next step for the company is to provide security testing to companies that are launching cloud deployments. Check out the full video interview below.
Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
