IBM announced a broad set of security software to help holistically secure data and identities.


IBM’s new software capabilities help clients better maintain security control over mobile devices, mitigate internal and external threats, reduce security risks in cloud environments, expand database security to gain real-time insights into big data environments such as Hadoop, and automate compliance and data security management.

Along with IBM Security Services and IBM’s world-class research capabilities, this set of scalable capabilities supports a holistic, proactive approach to security threats spanning people, data, applications and infrastructure.

“A major shift is taking place in how organizations protect data,” said Brendan Hannigan, General Manager, IBM Security Systems. “Today, data resides everywhere—mobile devices, in the cloud, on social media platforms. This is creating massive amounts of data, forcing organizations to move beyond a traditional siloed perimeter to a multi-perimeter approach in which security intelligence is applied closer to the target.”

According to the 2012 IBM Global Reputational Risk and IT Survey, global senior executives identified IT risks -- ranging from data thieves to the use of emerging technologies including cloud, mobile and social media -- as a major cause of concern. IBM is unveiling ten new products and enhancements to help organizations deliver real time security for big data, mobile and cloud computing.

Real time security for big data environments

As information grows in volume, variety, and velocity, organizations are looking beyond relational data sources to find insights, to make businesses more agile and to answer questions that were previously considered beyond their reach. Today, state of the art technologies including Hadoop based environments have opened the door to a world of possibilities.

At the same time, as organizations ingest more data, they face significant risks across a complex threat landscape and they are subject to a growing number of compliance regulations. Traditional approaches to data protection are often unable to meet these requirements.

With today’s announcement, IBM is among the first to offer data security solutions for Hadoop and other big data environments. Specifically, Guardium now provides real time monitoring and automated compliance reporting for Hadoop based systems such as InfoSphere BigInsights and Cloudera. With federated controls across data sources, clients can understand data and application access patterns, help prevent data leakage and enforce data change controls.

Built-in audit reporting can be used to generate compliance reports on a scheduled basis, distribute them to oversight teams for electronic sign-offs and escalation, and document the results of remediation activities. Organizations can also automate the detection of vulnerabilities and suggest prioritized remedial actions across heterogeneous infrastructures. In addition, IBM offers data masking to de-identify sensitive data as it moves into and out of big data systems.

Mobile security framework improves access and threat protection

Today IBM is announcing risk-based authentication control for mobile users, integration of access management into mobile application development and deployment as well as enhanced mobile device control. IBM is also announcing a comprehensive Mobile Security Framework to help organizations develop an adaptable security posture to protect data on the device, at the access gateway and on the applications.

With the launch of its new access management capabilities, IBM now offers greater context aware access control for mobile users, improved mobile threat protection, and enhanced mobile device control. With a broad portfolio of solutions for mobile security and management – including solutions for mobile application security and mobile security intelligence, IBM can help protect against security breaches, whether malicious or unintentional through risky employee access of data and applications - anytime, anywhere from any device.

Furthermore, with the simplicity of these mobile devices making them pervasive and seamlessly integrated into consumers’ everyday lives, new threats are evolving based on popular mobile-based activities such as retail purchases, managing bank accounts and updating social networks. The ubiquitous nature of mobility across both businesses and consumers requires that securing the smartphone encompass the device, the network and the applications on the device so that employees, consumers and even partners know their transactions are being executed across a secure environment.

IBM transforms cloud security from an inhibitor to an enabler

While the cloud can increase productivity with anywhere, anytime information access, it can also introduce additional challenges for enterprise security. To realize the value that cloud computing presents, organizations are looking for integrated security solutions to help address the risks.

IBM today is announcing security portfolio enhancements designed to address these new challenges, providing improved visibility and increased levels of automation and patch management to help demonstrate compliance, prevent unauthorized access and defend against the latest threats using advanced security intelligence.

With IBM’s new SmartCloud for Patch Management solution, patches are managed automatically regardless of location and remediation cycles are reduced from weeks to hours thereby reducing security risks. Additionally, IBM is announcing enhancements to its QRadar Security Intelligence Platform that provides a unified architecture for collecting, storing, analyzing and querying log, threat, vulnerability and security related data from distributed locations, using the cloud to obtain greater insight into enterprise-wide activity and enable better-informed business decisions.

The new IBM Security Privileged Identity Manager is designed to proactively address the growing insider threat concerns and help demonstrate compliance across the organization. IBM Security Access Manager for Cloud and Mobile which provides enhanced federated single sign-on to cloud applications is now available with improved out-of-the-box integration with commonly adopted SaaS applications and services.