Global IT security major McAfee is in talks with leading telecom companies in the country to offer an end-to-end security solution for enterprises on a services model. Two years ago, cyber security players started adopting the services model for the consumer segment. A plethora of devices and recent technology developments including cloud and BYOD have created a need for third-party administration of security infrastructure of businesses.

“Enterprises are confident about securing their traditional systems such as desktops, networks and backend infrastructure. But, the problem arises with developments such as BYOD (bring your own device). Organisations should have at least three to four times more capability because that many times the number of devices are entering the corporate network now,” said Jagdish Mahapatra, managing director of McAfee India and Saarc.

As per the BYOD concept that is gaining popularity, employees bring their own phones, tablets and laptops to work and log into the corporate network. Keeping track of every device and securing critical data has become a top concern for IT experts in enterprises.

The demarcation between personal and office work has diminished like never before.

While enterprises were never comfortable with letting in third parties to manage their security systems, it has become necessary for them to do so now because of the increasing complexity, Mahapatra added.

Indian enterprises have been through three phases of securing their IT infrastructure. The first one was reactive; they acted after a breach/threat happened and secured their systems with anti-virus, firewall and protection policies. It took about 3 - 4 per cent of their IT budgets.

The next phase was proactive; they went behind the best-of-the-breed products for every facet of security including end-point, network and web. That took up to 8 per cent of their IT budget. However, the problem was that different products from different vendors wouldn’t talk to each other and this led to inefficiency. A security expert looking at 10 different dashboards to monitor IT systems is surely asking for trouble, Mahapatra stressed. The need of the hour is to have complete/single visibility of all assets in one dashboard.

The present phase and the future is optimisation. With a security service that would monitor all solutions, enterprises can rid themselves of complexity, he said. This step would bring back security expense to about 4 per cent of IT budget, he added.

“We have expanded our services offerings and about 90 per cent of our products are now available in the model. The service should be launched within six months,” he said.

shyamalaseetharaman@mydigitalfc.com