STONESOFT OYJ 
By Stonesoft Executive Advisory Board discusses 2012 initiatives and priorities at recent meeting in United States
Helsinki, Finland - May 14, 2012 - Executive level security officers at some of the largest global companies have identified four main concerns for 2012: mobile device security, identity management for cloud computing:
http://a2cloud.stonesoft.com/, threat management and profiling, and increasing regulatory pressures. These insights were revealed at an executive advisory meeting for Stonesoft, an innovative provider of integrated network security, next generation firewalls:
http://ngfw.stonesoft.com/, and business continuity solutions. The meeting was held in Savannah, Georgia, United States.
"Our board members represent the thought leaders in security strategy for a number of global companies," said Richard Benigno, senior vice president of Stonesoft, U.S. "While they have identified a broad range of security challenges such as fraud monitoring and privacy control, they all agreed on these four major focus areas."
Mobile devices
Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) is a rapidly growing concern, affecting almost every organization. Many board members expressed challenges with balancing between controlling access to data and internal services with growing demand by employees for mobile use in the workplace.
Identity management
The cloud brings with it a loss of control by the IT department in managing user access. Single-sign on (SSO) to software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings is a challenge for most organizations, particularly top U.S. corporations where hundreds of individual departments are demanding access to new cloud-based applications.
Regulatory pressure
Governance requirements from federal and industry standards organizations continue to drive increased costs from labor and tools to achieve compliance. Increasing granularity of the reporting requirements for HIPAA, GLB, Sarbanes Oxley and other industry or application specific guidelines, such as PCI, increase overall IT costs for the organization.
Threat management and profiling
Threat management, rather than mere identification and prevention, will always be a top priority. The new goal is to be more proactive than reactive. This means identifying threats as they emerge and taking steps to stop unwanted activity in advance of a breach through threat profiling.
"Developing talent to address the upcoming expansion of information security will also be a top priority for these organizations," said Benigno.
Stonesoft founder and CEO Ilkka Hiidenheimo said he believes many vendors have fallen behind as the capabilities of attackers expand. "The threat landscape has changed since the inception of Stonesoft," he said. "It is much more dangerous that we ever expected, particularly due to the rapid expansion of mobile devices and cloud-based applications."
As a standard security process, the names of board members are not identified. Participating companies include seven of the Forbes Global 500 and are both customer and noncustomers of Stonesoft. For more information on Stonesoft and its solutions, please visit www.stonesoft.com:
http://www.stonesoft.com.
Contact:
For more information, please contact:
Juha Kivikoski
Chief Operating Officer
Stonesoft Corporation
Tel. + 358 40 5180 999
E-mail: juha.kivikoski(AT)stonesoft.com
About Stonesoft
Stonesoft Corporation (NASDAQ OMX: SFT1V) delivers software based, dynamic and customer driven network security solutions that secure the information flow and simplify security management. The company's product portfolio consists of the industry's first transformable Security Engine:
http://securityengine.stonesoft.com/, standalone next generation firewalls and intrusion prevention systems, and SSL VPN solutions. At the core lies Stonesoft's Management Center which unifies the management of entire networks.
Stonesoft serves private and public sector organizations requiring high availability, ease of management, compliance, dynamic security and protection of their critical digital assets and business continuity against today's rapidly evolving cyber threats. Stonesoft is a recognized researcher of advanced evasion techniques used in targeted cyber attacks to bypass security.
Stonesoft has the highest customer retention rate in the industry due to low TCO, ease of management, and overall customer excellence. Stonesoft's customer base covers more than 4,000 mid- or large-sized organizations across various industries and geographical markets.
Founded in 1990, the company's track record is well recognized by certifiers, industry analysts and demanding customers. The company's corporate headquarters are based in Helsinki, Finland and North American headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information, visit www.stonesoft.com:
http://www.stonesoft.com/.
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(i) the releases contained herein are protected by copyright and other applicable laws; and
(ii) they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the
information contained therein.
Source: Stonesoft Oyj via Thomson Reuters ONE
