The view from the other side of the fence

Wed Mar 13 13:00:41 UTC 2002

On Wed, 13 Mar 2002, Rajesh Talpade wrote:
> A network is only as secure as its weakest link....
>
> sounds like a cliche, but am afraid this least-common-denominator rule
> will hold as networks converge.

Is there anything we can do to improve this?  How can we make sure
the people who "need-to-know" find out how to secure their weakest
links instead of waiting for each company to stumble along their
learning curve.

The usual answer is hire an expert (or SAIC :-).  But there aren't
enough qualified experts to go around in the best of circumstances.
The problems include divergent cultures, technologies, and even
generations.  Until the technology crash, the so-called next
generation networking companies didn't want to "converge" with
the existing companies; they wanted to wipe them out.  There wasn't
a lot of sharing between the different groups, even within the
same company.

I'm not sure one security approach is better than the other, but they
mix like oil and water when you combine traditional telephone security
and Internet security methods.