Troy Hunt , a web security expert and Australian regional director for Microsoft security publicized a Mega data breach of more than 87 GB of leaked passwords and email addresses. These compromised email address were from data breaches coming from different sources. The data was collected and uploaded in the popular cloud service Mega, which contained over 22 million unique passwords apart from the 773 million email addresses. These records could be accessed by anyone with an internet connection, thereby making it a wide-reaching Mega Data Breach.
Apart from external security breaches inadvertent disclosure or mishandling of confidential data by internal employees is also a significant reason for data loss. Enterprises can be breach-ready by incorporating innovative Context-based security solutions into their existing security infrastructure.
Context-based security systems are designed with built-in ‘intelligence’ to use situational information – identity, location, time, device, business function etc. – to make more effective security decisions. The need of the hour is to give the organization complete control by incorporating the following features to their current security infrastructures:
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Improved Decision-Making: A context-aware solution uses information from multiple sources and has the ability to intelligently put it in the right context. This increases firewalls to take accurate security decisions during an incident.
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Better Focus and Faster Response: By filtering information based on context, firewalls can reduce the need for multiple security alerts to only a few key vulnerabilities that represent the highest risk. This also enables reduction in response time
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Detecting Advanced Threats: A context-based firewall security system is proactive in its approach and gives greater visibility and insights so IT managers can easily track what is happening on the network. This is particularly useful for thwarting next generation malware and advanced threats that are emerging
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Operational Savings: Reduction in response time, increase in accuracy of decisions and improved focus of security strategies are all factors that collectively result in operational savings for the organization by using a firewall which implements context based security.
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Access Control & Authentication: Context-based firewall systems are better at managing authentication and access control as they keep track of information like who is accessing what, at what location, what time, using which device etc. With high value information and sensitive data being accessed by managers through mobile devices, the need for improved access management systems is much higher today.
