Kent Farries & Ikenna Nwafor, TransAlta, sit with Dave Vellante and John Walls at Splunk .conf 2017 in Washington, D.C
#splunkconf17 #theCUBE
https://siliconangle.com/2017/11/27/best-defense-good-offense-case-new-data-security-platforms-splunkconf17/
The best defense is a good offense: The case for new data security platforms
Sec officers’ fundraising platform
A data platform for security, as opposed to a simple tool, might be a swifter sell across departments, and to management too.
TransAlta Corporation is a power generator and wholesale marketing company based in Calgary, Canada. Before 2009, cyber security was not a high priority for the company, Kent Farries, IT security at TransAlta, told theCUBE. In that year, it first implemented a security information event management solution. (A SIM is basically log management.) Farries and his colleagues found that the SIM did not turn up the information needed to detect and respond to threats.
The problem is that a SIM is vertical; it is built to serve one purpose, Farries said. It’s a security tool for the security team. Drawing in and dispersing data logs to other departments can be rickety, he said. The company eventually switched to Splunk for better cross-department data management, he said.
“It’s a platform for us, so we bring all the data in, it’s consumed by IT security, it’s consumed by DevOps and operations,” Farries said. The desktop team can also use it to detect application problems. Security can use all data brought in from any endpoint for detection and forensics capabilities, he said. “So for us it’s like a fabric, a foundation.”
Security can freely build use cases on the fly with the Splunk platform, says Ikenna Nwafor, senior information security specialist at TransAlta. Historically, this was far from the case, he said. “We would most likely need to engage a third party contractor […], somebody who is a specialist in that field,” he said.
Cross-department utility and a holistic view of security programs highlight another Splunk benefit: “Being able to communicate with the stats to senior management around getting the necessary buy-in to proceed with whatever initiatives we want […],” Nwafor said.
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Kent Farries & Ikenna Nwafor, TransAlta | Splunk .conf 2017
Kent Farries & Ikenna Nwafor, TransAlta, sit with Dave Vellante and John Walls at Splunk .conf 2017 in Washington, D.C
#splunkconf17 #theCUBE
https://siliconangle.com/2017/11/27/best-defense-good-offense-case-new-data-security-platforms-splunkconf17/
The best defense is a good offense: The case for new data security platforms
Sec officers’ fundraising platform
A data platform for security, as opposed to a simple tool, might be a swifter sell across departments, and to management too.
TransAlta Corporation is a power generator and wholesale marketing company based in Calgary, Canada. Before 2009, cyber security was not a high priority for the company, Kent Farries, IT security at TransAlta, told theCUBE. In that year, it first implemented a security information event management solution. (A SIM is basically log management.) Farries and his colleagues found that the SIM did not turn up the information needed to detect and respond to threats.
The problem is that a SIM is vertical; it is built to serve one purpose, Farries said. It’s a security tool for the security team. Drawing in and dispersing data logs to other departments can be rickety, he said. The company eventually switched to Splunk for better cross-department data management, he said.
“It’s a platform for us, so we bring all the data in, it’s consumed by IT security, it’s consumed by DevOps and operations,” Farries said. The desktop team can also use it to detect application problems. Security can use all data brought in from any endpoint for detection and forensics capabilities, he said. “So for us it’s like a fabric, a foundation.”
Security can freely build use cases on the fly with the Splunk platform, says Ikenna Nwafor, senior information security specialist at TransAlta. Historically, this was far from the case, he said. “We would most likely need to engage a third party contractor […], somebody who is a specialist in that field,” he said.
Cross-department utility and a holistic view of security programs highlight another Splunk benefit: “Being able to communicate with the stats to senior management around getting the necessary buy-in to proceed with whatever initiatives we want […],” Nwafor said.
