Let me tell you about a great opportunity if you’re an executive or professional in the Manufacturing or Industrial sector. Cisco is hosting a special ‘Industrial Intelligence Day’ on the 12th July 2011 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas held in conjunction with Cisco Live.

The event is especially tailored to bring together manufacturing, controls, operations and IT executives and professionals. The theme of the day is ‘Industrial Intelligence’, and will cover the subject  of converging industrial automation systems based upon standard IP networks with business applications including voice and video to more responsively and cost-effectively manage industrial operations globally.

The day is packed with information, training, and industry best practices and is sure to be one of the smartest investments you can make in your career—and one of the smartest investments your employer can make in you.

By attending Cisco Industrial Intelligence at Cisco Live, you can:

• Learn how Industrial Intelligence brings production closer to IT and converges industrial automation networks with business systems to improve the efficiency, safety, agility, and utilization of your production assets.
• Receive training in architectures specific to industrial automation from Cisco and alliance partner Rockwell Automation including wireless and wired technology advancements, availability, security, sustainability and energy management.
• Engage Industrial Intelligence and IT Networking thought leaders from our partners and the industrial analyst community via a live panel discussion plus join a community of manufacturing executives and IT and Control professionals deploying and operating Industrial applications and networks.
• Experience and see “hands-on” demonstrations of Industrial Intelligence solutions and technology and interact with experts at the World of Solutions Expo at the largest Cisco user conference, Cisco Live.

Register by June 12th to receive the $100 off Early Bird offer. Click here to register.

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Tags: aeroscout, automation, Borderless Networks, Cisco, cisco live, ciscolive, collaboration, Common Industrial Protocol, Energy Management, industrial, Industrial Automation, Industrial Intelligence, industrial networking, industrial wireless, innovation, librestream, Manufacturing, mobility, Panduit, partner, Rockwell, security, video, virtualization, wireless

The Unified Network Services (UNS) portfolio of Layer 4-7 services (such as ACE and WAAS) also includes Cisco’s data center security solutions. A critical part of that security portfolio is our virtualization-aware firewall solution, Virtual Security Gateway (VSG). In a series of upcoming blog posts, I’ll be sharing a few use case scenarios that our customers are implementing with VSG.

For those of you new to VSG, I’ll point out that VSG’s role is to act as a virtual firewall between zones of virtual machines. Isolating traffic between VM zones has been very challenging prior to VSG because: 1) security policies have to be enforced between VMs running on the same server or same virtual switch (where there’s no place to put a firewall), 2) VMs move all around the network and the security policies (as enforced in the firewall) must follow the VM, and 3) the need to maintain segregation of duties for compliance purposes between the security and application server teams, where security is potentially enforced inside the virtual server.

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Tags: ACE, cloud, data center, firewall, NAM, Nexus 1000v, security, UNS, vdi, virtual deskop, Virtual Security Gateway, vsg, waas

Network security has to keep pace with an ever-changing mobile workforce’s needs and an increased threat profile. And it doesn’t help that security risks are everywhere. There’s been a 46% increase in the spread of malware on mobile devices in 2010 while at the same time, 20% of workers have left devices unattended, and 46% have let others use their devices, according to the Connected World Report, 2010.

But with all these risks out there, so many “good enough” networks that are cobbled together with the least expensive equipment employ the bolt-on security method. This leaves the network (and valuable data) open to hackers and other security threats.

In the second installment of the Seven Myths of the Good Enough Network series, Mike Rau, VP & CTO of Cisco’s Borderless Network Architecture, delves into the myth of bolt-on security. In addition to outlining the pitfalls of taking a good-enough, bolt-on approach to security, Mike highlights the benefits of integrating security into the network architecture. Sound interesting? Here’s the full article on Silicon Angle.

Here’s some additional information on the myth of the good-enough network.

Blog:  The Myth of the Single Purpose Network

Blog:  The Seven Myths of the Good-Enough Network

Webcast:  Debunking the Myth of the Good-Enough Network

White Paper:  When Good Isn’t Good Enough

Tags: bolt-on security, Good Enough Networks, security

This is part of an ongoing series on the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace. The introduction to this series can be found here.

One of the goals of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) is to support a wide range of use cases. These might include everything from low-value purchases to making adjustments to critical infrastructure, like power systems, where someone might get hurt if an unauthorized action takes place.

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Tags: identity, NSTIC, NSTIC Series, privacy, security

In this week’s Cyber Risk Report we briefly discussed the fact that millions of individuals are victims of their own carelessness by freely posting information such as vacation plans and family photos on social networks and by storing Personally Identifiable Information (PII), such as medical records and financial information, on mobile devices. Users are sometimes not properly educated when it comes to what types of information should be shared, and with whom they should be sharing this information. This lack of education and subsequent “overposting” of personal details is now trickling down to our youth, some of whom are under the legal age to even utilize some of these social network sites. Read More »

Tags: cyber security, facebook, security, social networking