Securing smartphones and tablets used for work protects both the employee and the business.

More of your employees are using personal consumer devices for work than you may realize. The majority of them probably carry an Internet-enabled smartphone, like an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or an Android phone, and some may even be using an iPad for work, too. And employees are using these devices to access and work with the company data they need to do their jobs. Like the computers at your office, employees’ personal devices should be secured to protect both the business assets on your network and any sensitive data on employees’ personal devices.

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Tags: security, small business

From joint reference architectures to education webcasts, the collaboration between Cisco and Rockwell Automation benefits manufacturers.  The partnership has empowered corporations globally and now industry experts from both companies are ready to share their best practices and lessons learned.

The upcoming RACES (Rockwell Automation and Cisco Education Series) educational webcast will focus on Securing Architectures and Applications for
Industrial Networks. 

Thursday, April 28
9:00 a.m. PST / 10:00 a.m. MST / 11:00 a.m. CST / 12:00 p.m. EST

Growing demands for greater information access accelerate the convergence of manufacturing and enterprise networks and help manufacturers make better business decisions. As critical control systems link to company-wide infrastructures and beyond, new risks emerge that can affect productivity, operational efficiency and functional safety. To ensure the benefits derived from plantwide convergence outweigh risks and threats, it is imperative to follow contemporary architecture design practices that can enhance network resiliency and help protect key assets and information. 

Learn From Industry Experts

Speakers Scott Johnston, Principal Consultant for Network & Security Services, Rockwell Automation and Bryce Barnes, Enterprise Vertical Solutions Architect for Manufacturing, Cisco, will discuss the solutions from Rockwell Automation and Cisco to address the challenges of network convergence. Learn the fundamentals and best practices for:

• Securing manufacturing computing and controller assets
• The value a Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) brings to your manufacturing framework
• How FactoryTalk Services and Applications such as FactoryTalk ViewPoint and FactoryTalk
• Transaction Manager can be deployed within the manufacturing framework to leverage the DMZ

To register for this event or to learn more,please click here

About The Cisco and Rockwell Partnership

The Cisco and Rockwell Automation partnership consists of: Read More »

Tags: automation, best practices, Borderless Networks, Control engineers, convergence, educational. education, Ethernet to the factory, Factory, Industrial Automation, Industrial Intelligence, Industry, machine, Manufacturing, operational excellence, plant, RACES, Rockwell, security, shop flloor

While the IT industry is in many ways moving toward an outsourced model, with the widespread adoption of the cloud and XaaS, marketing has been moving in a similar direction as well. And while PR agencies have been around for quite some time and it has been normal to look to outside agencies for help with creatives, over the past several years a new kind of service provider, the Email Service Provider, or ESP, has emerged from the shadows. Not to be mistaken for cloud-based email security services, ESPs are in the business of sending mass email (typically opt-in), not blocking it. Unfortunately, for many, their first exposure to these companies (outside of an inbox full of enticing offers) has been via news around data breaches, first, in 2010 with Silverpop and now Epsilon.

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Tags: cloud, cloud security, email, phishing, security, spear phishing

In the previous installment of our series of IPv6 security posts, we covered some of the ways addressing has changed in IPv6 compared to IPv4. In this post, we’ll talk about some of the things to consider when securing IPv6 compared to IPv4. Before digging into this topic, however, it is important to remember that while IPv6 may have different security concerns than IPv4, it is not necessarily any more secure than IPv4. Furthermore, the post will focus on those aspects that are different or unique to IPv6, since many of the common best practices for IPv4 networks also apply to IPv6 networks.

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Tags: IPv6, IPv6-security, security

It is clear that we are in a transition with regards to the way information is published and consumed. Old school media such as newspapers and network news are in decline or are, like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, looking for new ways to remain relevant.

The rise of social media as a source of news has both positive and negative aspects. On the positive side the speed of social media has proven hard to match. For example, on November 23, 2010, North Korea shelled Yeongyeong Island in South Korea. My first notification about that event was via Twitter and it was only later that I was able to get confirmation via CNN. Similarly on March 11, 2011, when the earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit Japan with tragic consequences, my first notification was again via Twitter. Clearly first-mover advantage goes to social media, largely due to the lack of overhead and the few barriers to and low cost of publishing.

Recently we saw one of the weaknesses to the often knee-jerk, fast-twitch responses that social media can create with the unfortunate accusations that were falsely leveled at Samsung; statements accusing the Korean manufacturer of putting keylogging software on its laptops. Read More »

Tags: security, social media, twitter