RSA 2013 San Francisco - Where the World Talks Security

The RSA 2013 San Francisco security trade show  takes place  at Moscone Center February 25 through March 1.  “Where the World Talks Security” is the theme of this year’s show.  http://www.rsaconference.com/events/2013/usa/index.htm

 

Near the bottom of this blog is information on getting a free RSA  pass (exhibition hall) from Ahnlab, Zscaler, or Sophos.

The show has grown in size, with over 350 companies exhibiting.  The exhibition hall area will be open Tuesday through Thursday from 11am to 6pm (3pm on Thursday) for individuals with a full conference pass; there will be 275 different sessions to attend across 22 tracks.  Threats are evolving.  The cyber criminals are getting more creative. 

Up until several years ago, if you said “APT”, the brightest people in the room would say, “Advanced Placement Test.”  Now they are saying, “Advanced Persistent Threat.”  A number of security pundits are saying that traditional defenses are ineffective against today’s more sophisticated threats.  Here is your chance to learn about what companies are doing to protect individuals and companies against these. 

A number of security vendors may not have booths.  Look for stealthy meetings to be held at the bar area at the W Hotel, and way too many luncheons to at the Thirsty Bear Brewery on Howard street.  Some stealthy meetings may be held as far away as the Clift Hotel. 

For those just going for the exhibits, a great number of vendors always have   presentation theatres in their booth areas.  These can be quite educational, as well.  Exhibition pass holders are able to attend the keynotes Tuesday through Friday, I believe.  There are a number of keynote addresses at RSA 2013.  The final keynote this year will be 66^th Secretary of the United States, Condoleezza Rice, on Friday afternoon.   Go to the RSA site to learn about what talks are being give, and who the other keynote speakers are. 

Thursday is the least crowded day in the Exhibition Hall, as vendors will go through the ceremonial exchanging of the tchotchkes with other vendors.  Before going on your own personal tchotchke run, ask yourself, “Do I really need another 15 trade show tee shirts?”  If you do not attend on Tuesday, you will miss the libations being served during the last hour on the first day the exhibition hall is open.

Sponsors for this Year’s RSA 2013 San Francisco

Global Diamond Sponsors – Microsoft, Symantec, and RSA.  Global Platinum Sponsors, Akamai, and Qualys, Global Gold Sponsors – FireEye, splunk, and SafeNet, Platinum Sponsors – Cisco, McAfee, HP, and TrustWave.  There are also Gold and Silver sponsor levels as well.  Visit their booths. Travel the perimeter to view products from companies who lack the budget of the larger companies, may just be starting out, but may also have great products.    

This is your chance to attend a talk by a smaller vendor, then go to a larger vendor and ask, “Can you do A, B, and C?  This smaller vendor can.”    Asking a larger vendor why their products didn’t test as well on the tests performed by  www.virusbtn.com , www.AV-Test.org   and www.AV-comparatives.org  will not get you to the front of the line for any booth giveaways.  At the show, you may be able to view products that range from not so hot, to avg,  to pretty incredible.

Award Events Not Affiliated with RSA But Being Held That Week

SC Magazine will be presenting their SC Awards 2013 Reader Trust, Excellence, and Professional Awards   at a dinner on February 26. There are  over 34 categories this year.  To see a list of some of the finalists, go to http://kensek.blogspot.com/2012/02/sc-magazine-awards-2012-winners_29.html

 

Info Security Products Guide will be presenting their 2013 Global Industry excellence awards at a dinner on February 27.  To see a list   of the finalists for this award, go to http://www.infosecurityproductsguide.com/excellence/index.html

 

For the recipients of either these awards - Bragging rights, Product and company recognition, Marketing and promotion opportunities, Logos for their web site.  With a fair degree of certainty,  rest assured that those who have won the previous year but not this year, will not quickly be removing their logos from the web.   sites.

Free Pass – RSA 2013 San Francisco

Entering FXE13AHN at the link below will get you a free RSA 2013 exhibition hall pass.  Stop by the Ahnlab booth, learn about APTs, and tell Ahnlab  thank you.  FX13SPH at the link below will get you a free RSA  2013 exhibition hall pass.  Stop by the Sophos booth and tell them thank you.  As will FXE13ZSC.  Stop by the Zscaler booth and tell them thank you. Expires February 22.

Register: https://ae.rsaconference.com/US13/portal/newreg.ww

Secure Web Gateway Market Heating Up – Websense Version 7.7

The Secure Web Gateway market is livening up.  On Monday, San Diego based Websense announced Version 7.7 of Websense Triton and their Websense   Secure Web Gateway.  They state that their Websense Triton solution is the first to provide data-aware defenses necessary to prevent the advanced attacks that lead to data theft.

Websense also announced that the 7.7 release contains 10 new advanced malware and data theft advances, including spear phishing protection with cloud sandboxing, and a new forensic reporting dashboard with in-depth security intelligence.

These new defenses also  include    detecting criminal encrypted uploads; advanced malware payloads and command-and-control recognition; optical character recognition (OCR) of text within images for data-in-motion; drip (stateful) DLP detection; password file theft detection; and geolocation awareness.  These are powered by   Websense’s real-time inline ACE (Advanced Classification Engine) security engine and Websense’s imbedded Data Loss Prevention (DLP) engine.

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Spear phishing protection with cloud sandboxing is part of the arsenal.  Websense's   cloud sandboxing capability identifies suspicious links in emails for real time analysis.  When email recipients click on an embedded URL, Websense analyzes the website content and browser code in real time, in a cloud environment, to ensure safety in any location at any time.

The Websense TRITON Advanced Malware Threat dashboard   profiles security incidents, provides in-depth forensics, and data theft capture.  With severity levels and the ability to export incidents to SIEM solutions, Websense users know who was attacked, how the attacks function, where those communications were being sent, and what data was targeted.

Blue Coat Systems is promoting that their   Unified Web Security Solution, combining cloud services and on-premise appliances delivers the “No Boundaries, Always On protection”.  The cornerstone of their protection, their Secure Web Gateway appliance(s) (ProxySG) and their real-time WebPulse technology, a defense that utilizes   the information provided by 75 million users. 

Historically, Blue Coat has been an appliance-focused company.  They are now more heavily promoting their hybrid and cloud technology, due in large part to San Jose, CA based Zscaler.  Blue Coat  introduced their Unified Web Security Solution in March and are now more heavily promoting their cloud service, along with a 30-day trial.

According to the Gartner “Market Share: Security Software, Worldwide, 2011 Report (March 29, 2012), Inc., Blue Coat is the leader with 17 percent of the $1.95 billion Secure Web Gateway market.  This combines both appliances and software solutions.  In the appliance segment of the market, Blue Coat has about  44 percent of the market, leading its closest competitor by more than 30 percentage points.

Zscaler is the cloud-based canon in the mix.  Actually, they use a jet in their imagery.  Zscaler offers a pure cloud based solution.   They dislike hardware and consider Capex (Capital expenditure) to be a four letter word. They’re   the newcomer to the Leader’s portion of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways.  Gartner considers them the Leader with respect to Completeness of Vision.  Cisco is given credit for having the best Ability to Execute, with Blue Coat and Websense sandwiched between the two.  Mc.Afee is  off to the left in the Leader portion of the Magic Quadrant.

The Zscaler  message – “Attention  all Blue Coat Customers, if you’re  the victim of underperforming proxies lacking sufficient security or if you have lost budget support  due to the high cost of multiple appliances, call the Zscaler Security Help Line.”  They offer five flavors of cloud based web security suites http://www.zscaler.com/products_web_security.html  Add on’s include email protection, mobile protection, and Data Loss Prevention (DLP).

One of their promotions has been to offer their solution free for six months to prospects.  The focus being on Blue Coat customers.

So where will this play out?  Blue Coat is 20% leaner and meaner, following their purchase by equity investment firm Thoma Bravo.  They have a hybrid solution.  They have a cloud solution.  They haven’t done a great job of promoting these.  They have a leading WAN solution but that merits a separate discussion. 

It should be an interesting summer for these companies.

Websense has upgraded their product line.  Their solutions have been available as appliances, SaaS, software,  and a Hybrid.  Like Zscaler, they offer email security, as well.  This is a hole in the Blue Coat product line.

Zscaler has their sight on Blue Coat, almost exclusively. They want share. They have a reputation for playing a bit loose regarding number of data centers around the world. But,  hey! It's marketing.   Blue Coat and Websense go after each other.  McAfee and Cisco, the other two companies in the Leaders portion of the quadrant, are relatively quiet in comparison.  Not quite in the shadows – Barracuda Networks, whose strategy tends to be to deliver the low cost solution. Also, Palo Alto Networks. Palo Alto Networks’  Next Generation Firewall provides filtering and like Websense,   automated sandbox analysis of suspicious files.  They also provide limited DLP protection, as well. They are now starting to move forward on the plans to go public.

   

Application control is a topic for another blog. 

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways - May 2012

Gartner released its Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways on May 24    ID:G00234572.  You can’t say that there was a clear winner among the companies in the Leaders Quadrant.  Zscaler remained the highest ranked with respect to Completeness of Vision, and Cisco from the perspective of Ability to Execute.  Websense and Blue Coat were sandwiched in between with McAfee also in the Leaders Quadrant.  

Among the usual suspects, Webroot was dropped from the grid (must meet those revenue thresholds, people) and M86 Security is now part of Trustwave.  Barracuda is now in a more favorable position than Trend  Micro in the Challengers part of the quadrant.  Overall, though, there  wasn’t a lot of movement between the companies represented on the Quadrant.  

Companies evaluating alternatives  should look at the report for the Strengths and Cautions highlighted by Gartner.  It’s also interesting  to look at the previous year’s report,   to see whether vendors you’re evaluating dealt with any of the Cautions Gartner brought up for vendors you may have  under evaluation. 

According to Gartner, The market is  led by  on-premises solutions with 87% of the market with SWG as a service representing the remainder.  Gartner  see’s  the SaaS alternative growing at 35% in fiscal 2012.

Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) from companies such as  SonicWall and Palo Alto Networks were not included in the reports,  as these are primarily firewalls.  People interested in the growing evolution of this technology and SWG’s, should acquire the Gartner Report  "Next-Generation Firewalls and Secure Web Gateways Will Not Converge Before 2015,"  ID Number: G00212272.  Palo Alto Networks   positions  their NGFW solutions  as making the need to acquire a secure web gateway unnecessary. Unrelated side note - There have to be discussions by Palo Alto Networks people and the "smartest guys in the room" about their pending IPO (Initial Public Offering) after the recent Facebook IPO. Predictions - there will be a Harvard Business School case study and the phrases "pop" and "money on the table" will appear in a lot more articles on future IPOs.

How Do You Use A Gartner Magic Quadrant?

The below is from a Research Methodologies piece  on utilizing Magic Quadrants.  Too often,  a pic of the quadrant will make its way onto a slide deck with no explanation. 

 

Clients use Magic Quadrants as a first step to understanding the technology providers they might consider for a specific investment opportunity.Keep in mind that focusing on the leaders' quadrant isn't always the best course of action.  There are good reasons to consider market challengers.  And a niche player may support your needs better than a market leader.  It all depends on how the provider aligns with your business goals.

http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/methodologies/research_mq.jsp

 

Those wanting a full copy of the report can go to Gartner or register with vendors such as Zscaler for read access to the report. Let the issuing of press releases begin. 

 http://www.zscaler.com/Gartner-Magic-Quadrant-Secure-Web-Gateway.html?src=WEB_HOME

 

Trustwave to Acquire M86 Security

Trustwave, a Chicago cloud based, provider of on-demand data security and payment card industry compliance management solutions, has come to an agreement to acquire M86 Security. M86 Security, based in Irvine, CA, is a combination of what were four separate companies several years ago. They may still be better known for some of their parts, Marshal, Avinti, 8e6, and Finjan than they are for the M86 Security name.

M86 Security is one of two Visionaries in the 2011 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways, competing against leaders Cisco, Blue Coat Systems (taken private by Thoma Bravo in February), Websense, McAfee, and Zscaler. They offer solutions in Web Security, email security, and have an SMB Security Suite. M86 does not offer the real time defense solution and web application controls that some of their competitors provide. However, they were the first company to deliver a hybrid cloud Web security service. M86 Security’s email security solution is one of the Visionaries in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Secure Email Gateways.

This is a nice acquisition for Trustwave. They gain 26,000 customers. It broadens their already extensive security portfolio. It gives them great brand recognition and entrees in the Secure Web Gateway and Secure email Gateway marketplace. The nice thing about the M86 Secure Web Gateway solution is that it can be deployed as a traditional appliance, virtual appliance, or a hybrid cloud option. Of course, companies like Zscaler, would beg to differ, stating that a cloud solution is the only way to go. Nonetheless, hybrid solutions are nice for companies considering the cloud without having to drink the cloud kool-aid (bit of a mixed metaphor).

M86 Security – Irvine, CA. Trustwave - Chicago. I see the Irvine office remaining.

To learn more about the respective companies - http://www.trustwave.com and http://m86security.com