RSA 2012 Keynote

I recently ran across a video of Enrique Salem's keynote at the RSA conference 2012. If you didn't go to the conference or haven't heard the speech it really is quite interesting and is worth taking 28 minutes out of your day to listen to it. Here is a link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFTrI8R8m4

For those of you that don't know Enrique Salem is the President and CEO of Symantec Corp. I thought his comparison of Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants was very accurate. Being a digital native myself I know what he means when he says that walking out of the house without being connected to the rest of the world in someway is very disturbing. My job even requires me to be constantly connected to ensure that I do not miss anything important. I think it is important for us, as security professionals, to continue to work towards a security solution that will allow digital natives the freedom they desire and at the same time provide the digital immigrants the security they know.

Symantec also recently released a new enterprise product that appears to be a solution to this very problem. It is called "O3." For the scientific types, O3 is the molecular representation of Ozone and just like Ozone O3 was designed to protect a company's cloud services. Here is the product page for more information: http://www.symantec.com/theme.jsp?themeid=O3

Unfortunately, to me it appears that there are no big improvements over any other beefed up Firewall. The only functionality it adds is allowing users to sign on to every service in one location. From that one location administrators can keep track of and control where their data is going. Tasks that can be performed at a service level basis with our current technology. I can't completely dog on this product though. The convenience that it provides can create an environment that is easier to manage and easier to secure than trying to secure each service independently.

I believe that Mr. Salem and Symantec have a great vision for where they see security moving in the future, cloud computing is certainly among us. I also believe that O3 is the first of many steps into creating a new product that will effectively secure cloud services, respect user's privacy and allow the freedom of collaboration that we so love about the internet.