Carol Wilson over at Light Reading has put together a comprehensive article on the current state of network security in this era of IP based telecommunications. She cites various sources that warn of a (sensationally named) “Digital Pear Harbor” looming on the horizon. If we don’t address our lack of security now, we shouldn’t be surprised when an attack causes massive financial damage and outages of a large portion of our Public Infrastructure.
Governmental Policy, Industry coercion, even private sector coordination alone cannot prevent such an attack from happening. In most cases these types of actions lead to “analysis-paralysis”. Lots of money spent, time wasted and in the end we’re no better off.
In the end technological evolution always spearheads an answer to these issues. In this case Vertical Integration should prove it’s worth. The idea behind it is to implement software features by developing programmable hardware which has enough headroom to accept new features for 3-5 years (you implementation may vary). Vertical Integration has proven time and time again it’s ability to blend deterministic behavior, complex processing and financial viability into one package.
A fair number of companies have shown technology leadership due to their implementations of Vertical Integration and built billion dollar businesses on the idea. Here are a few examples:
- Juniper Networks with the Internet Processor Family
- Infinera with their Photonic Integrated Circuit
- Accedian Networks with their NID Family
In the arena of security there have been literally dozens of start-ups who have attempted Vertical Integration to solve security issues and a fair number of them have built successful products. The only difference between security companies and infrastructure companies (like the ones listed above) is the constant threat of hackers who are usually a half-step ahead of the security vendors.
However, I believe this gap is closing. There are a few new companies in the security arena who are pushing technology evolution with Vertical Integration. One company of note is Palo Alto Networks who have developed a way to inspect and control applications from within the network at wire speed by using a mix of programmable and off-the-shelf hardware.
Do you have any experience with this or any comments? Please sound off below!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe the “Pearl Harbor” comparison is not so bad at all. I wonder if the companies will face serious trouble to survive even before there is bigger trouble for societies. It’s not that the national agencies are completely unaware what could go wrong and I’ve heard about one ISDN network not being converged because “the government” using them; they know why. Imagine other countries would play the “national security” card as hard as the US does – the big three IP folks A, C & J would be in trouble.
Building a critical infrastructure on today’s IP networks is a failure. The complexity means even ridiculous small mistakes can create larger damage. Remember the partial Internet disturbance a few weeks ago when RIPE and an University “played” with the Net? One line to fix it. In fact 2 characters
These protocols are fascinating from an academic point of view but a nightmare for operations.
But hey, as nobody has the full picture anymore why not following the people that promise simple solutions. A fancy-looking box, a colourful control application – I take it!
Marc
I think that Network Security risks increases more and more .
Thanks for post .
network security always improve, indeed the attacker always improve their skills too.
Agreeing with the above two posts! Network security does always improve. But so does the attacker!