Sheriff White-Hat (alias) of Golden Gulch learned that a dangerous gang of thieves was planning to rob his town. The possible targets were the bank, a gambling emporium, and a gold processor with a vault full of ingots resulting from a secret new purification technology. Lastly, a cattle ranch was about to auction $5 million of prized breeding stock. The sheriff only had himself and his deputy to protect these five diverse targets and decided he needed backup. Was the year 1887, 1910, or 2014?

The correct answer is 2014. This scenario is fictional, but the threats are real. Banks and e-gambling sites are constantly threatened by intrusive attacks, thieves use various destructive tools to rig auction results, and even foreign governments are hacking into private businesses to steal technology. Guns remain a threat as vandals are using fiber optic cables for target practice to further imperil business continuity. 

The surge of new technologies such as WebRTC, M2M, dark fiber, SaaS (News - Alert), and EaaS dramatically improve speed and convenience but also introduce additional security risks. Plus, the thieves’ propensity to immediately try to break into anything new makes it increasingly difficult for the White-Hats to keep pace.  Granted, today’s crooks are definitely more sophisticated than in the Old West, but even in those simpler times many businesses relied on outside organizations for protection. Pinkerton's National Detective Agency was founded by Allan Pinkerton in 1850. The name may conjure up mental images of the Old West, but it continues as a leader in today’s risk management services market along with a host of very sophisticated applications providers, consultants, and resellers. 

The key questions you need to ask are: are we fully protected or, is our IT team a little unclear on how to secure the considerable range of emerging technologies?  If the answer to 2 is yes, them the answer to 1 has to be no. 

Many IT departments are reluctant to request outside assistance confusing the request with an admission of inadequacy rather than a demonstration of the confidence required to take charge and fully secure a company’s data and communications. Do not make that mistake! A good starting point is TMC’s Online Communities to find the latest information on today’s leading technologies.

Max Schroeder vice president emeritus of FaxCore Inc. and managing director of the DPCF. Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) is CEO and group editor-in-chief at TMC, and conference chairman of ITEXPO.