RSA's Coviello: Storage and Security Go Hand In Hand

In his fireside keynote chat at Everything Channel's Virtual Tradeshow, Art Coviello, President of RSA, Security Division of EMC, discussed the changing security environment which has opened the door for security/storage vendor to bring new opportunities for partners.

Above all else, customers need both storage and security, Coviello said."If you're selling storage, you should absolutely be selling security," he said. "If you're not, you're just missing an opportunity."

And part of the reason that EMC RSA can compete with larger vendors comes in light of the fact that protection from emerging security threats requires both backup capabilities and advanced security technologies, the RSA president said.

During his talk, Coviello underscored that security needs have changed due to the fact that threats have become increasingly sophisticated. Social engineering methods have become more finite, targeted and complex. Attacks like spearphishing, a message or malicious link that targets specific individuals, usually at an executive level, have become increasingly common.

"The amount of social engineering for things like passwords is on the uptick," said Coviello. "The whole purpose is to find specific information within a company."

Unlike years past, data now has "a tremendous amount of movement," Coviello said, which has increased the need for multiple encryption technologies. Individuals can lose laptops or infect files that they send to their home computers. As a result, internal threats have become just as relevant, and possibly as harmful, as deliberate external threats, Coviello said.

"(Customers) should be equally concerned. The internal threats and external threats are pretty much the same," he said.

With the changing threatscape, Coviello said that EMC's storage line, combined with RSA's security technologies, give the company a competitive edge in the marketplace to address multilevel threats.

"Add RSA technology to that, and you have quite a competitive differentiator for a reseller," said Coviello.

Opportunities will be generated for resellers to introduce EMC RSA products as businesses fully realize their security needs, he said.

"You start out by asking what are you trying to accomplish here? Is this about revenue enhancement? Cost reduction? Compliance? You have to fully understand what the business goal is," said Coviello.

"It's less about return on investment and more about understanding risk," he added.

Opportunities are constantly being created as companies are required to adhere to increasingly stringent compliance regulations, such as HIPPA, Sarbanes Oxley and PCI standards.

Companies are also realizing that they need to adopt comprehensive security solutions, which involve both backup capabilities and proactive security measures, in order to avoid experiencing a data breach and suffering the embarrassment of headline news, he said.

Coviello emphasized that EMC/RSA products can address all those needs, particularly in the data loss prevention core competency. He highlighted the comany's offerings, particularly pattern recognition technologies, which can search for geographic areas on IP addresses, time of day, screen resolution in order to detect anomalies.

"The idea of data loss prevention is pretty big. Static defenses don't work," he maintained.

Plus, in light of an impending recession, Coviello said that security tends to be more resilient than other technologies.

"Security tends to be at the top of all spending lists," he said. "If there's a recession, everyone will suffer at some level. We would probably suffer less."

"Security is an enabler. Security should be like the brakes on your automobile. The intention of brakes are to stop and slow the car down," Coviello added. "In reality, it allows you to go as fast as you want to go."