I am constantly intrigued by the people who attend large, IT industry events like last month’s McAfee FOCUS 11 and the Cloud Expo in Santa Clara from where I am writing this note. Watching IT people at all levels, overhearing their conversations, and speaking with them reinforces that they are all super-driven to understand and predict – to do whatever is possible to stay up with technology and not be left behind. I find this especially fascinating because I’m just like them. And, I’m in the fortunate position to be the guy at McAfee they pay to think about these things and predict where technology and security is heading.
Don’t get me wrong, I would never presume to know what the future holds. I only know that I’ve been part of this remarkable, changing and morphing world of security and collaboration and truly believe the past holds the key to the future. I mean, you can see it. From the first instant messaging platform called ICQ that introduced the ‘buddy list’ in 1996, to the old X.25 networks (pre-commercialized Internet) which could be considered the first collaborative cloud, with tools like MCI Mail and Sprint Telemail.
So, as I was walking the show floor, I was stopped by an eager, young manager who asked me what I thought about social networking’s impact on the future of online security. We get this question a lot, but I had the sense that this guy was looking for something more. We chatted a bit about Facebook and how that model changed everything – and not just in terms of spawning social networking. From my perspective, this isn’t as much about social networking as it is about identity. The real impact will be on how we use identity to make the enterprise safer and employees more secure.
Today, there are roughly 750 million Facebook users – 750 million people using one online service all mapping their relationships. I find this absolutely incredible. And, now the Facebook platform is set up to allow us to also label these relationships. Facebook is by far the largest identity provider out there. The data and the model cannot be ignored – but instead, should be looked at as an opportunity for the enterprise. Zuckerberg’s Law suggests that people will share more and more each year. It’s our responsibility to identify what’s on the other end of all this sharing and help create the trust management model that will ensure that what is shared is secure
McAfee is working hard to create the trust management model and protect the cloud through identity – especially as we integrate more tightly with Intel. Check out our Cloud Security Platform and take a quick read through our latest press release to see how we are evolving cloud security.
