Eric Hoh, vice president, Asia South Region, Symantec

Cyber security firm Symantec has identified key IT trends that spread around five core areas namely data explosion crunch, consumerisation of IT/ increased mobility, cloud, virtualisation, and the changing threat landscape. “These five megatrends are the key drivers and enablers of Asia South's IT transformation,” said Symantec's vice president of the Asia South region, Eric Hoh, at the 2011 Partner Engage Conference in Hong Kong on 15 September.

“These trends are driving the evolvement of how businesses address their security, storage and system management needs,” elaborated Hoh. At the same time, said Hoh, “they also create great opportunities for enterprises to increase revenue potential and relevance by assisting their customers to meet these challenges.”

"Symantec's partners can continue to expand their solutions and take advantage of the opportunity that lies ahead," said Hoh, to some 150 South Asia channel senior executives present at the conference.

Comprehensive approach

Information is growing at the rate of 50 percent every year, noted Hoh. With that said, businesses need to take an information-centric approach to be successful, he advised. For instance, they need to look at a more comprehensive data storage management solution, he said.

Secondly, Hoh continued, with mobile devices becoming ubiquitous in the enterprise, chief information officers (CIOs) have no choice but to support the broad spectrum of devices out there. CIOs are faced with the dilemma of balancing convenience and risk, Hoh said.  “In such an environment, protecting information has become increasingly critical," he pointed out. To address security concerns pertaining to multiple devices, a mobile device management solution is essential, he said.

The approach to security has to change in tandem with the evolving threat landscape, added Hoh. The traditional approach to security will not combat today’s threats that are ever more financially-motivated and politically-driven, said Hoh, citing the StuxNet and WikiLeaks incidents. A multi-layered defence in-depth security is needed, he highlighted.  

A signature-based approach is no longer adequate for the increasingly sophisticated and highly-targeted attacks, Hoh continued. Reputation-based protection is important to ensure security of information today, he said.

Symantec's technology, such as Insight, which is a reputation-based security technology, is therefore becoming more relevant to businesses, he added.

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