WWT's Nilesh Mistry: Test drive your security approach

WWT Vice President of Asia Pacific Nilesh Mistry authored an article for Security Solutions Today discussing the proper approach to enterprise security solutions.

Posted by Networks Asia on December 10, 2018:

Selecting and testing the right security solution for your organization is a major decision and a time-consuming one. A slipshod decision here can result in downtime, data loss or worse, a network breach. Informed decisions, on the other hand, require a thorough analysis of all available offerings, which can be challenging. A common refrain from many organizations is that they simply do not have enough time, staff, expertise or the needed infrastructure to test and select the right cybersecurity solution.

Just like buying a car, cybersecurity solutions need to be driven over several rounds on the circuit before organizations can find the most suitable and optimal solution for their needs. The best way to do this is to work with cybersecurity vendors to test out these solutions in a sandbox environment before actual implementation.

Always Best to Test-drive

How can organizations test and evaluate different security solutions while keeping their normal business operations up and running? Organizations should select a vendor who can simulate organizations' actual systems within a lab environment allowing organizations to run tests on multiple solutions concurrently without affecting their day-to-day operations. This will bring about greater time and cost savings while allowing for more accurate comparison between the different solutions since they will be tested in a controlled environment.

Another advantage to this is that vendors can help organizations perform proof of concept (POC) evaluations on certain theoretical solutions in a virtual environment.

Security Training

In a fast-changing cybersecurity landscape, organizations need to ensure their teams remain updated with the latest trends and cyber threats on the horizon. This is often done through frequent cybersecurity trainings. However, the exercise is often seen as boring and time-consuming owing to its staid nature.

It is possible to change this by creating virtual war zones in a lab and pitting customer organizations against each other. These cyber war games can be made to simulate a security environment under attack. Not only will trainees be able to apply the concepts they've learnt in a simulation, but this will certainly make the exercise far more engaging. It will also make for a good team-building activity.