Patch Monday: When apps go wild: beyond the SOE

Businesses have lost control of the applications their employees are running in a process that’s been dubbed the consumerisation of the enterprise.

They use web-based tools like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube at home, they download any software they think will improve their lot, and expect to be able to do the same at work. Locking them into a standard operating environment (SOE) cramps their style.

At IBM’s Pulse 2011 event in Melbourne last week, which I attended as their guest, I spoke with Dr Paul Ashley, engineering manager at IBM’s Gold Coast Security Development Laboratory. He reckons the days of the SOE are pretty much over. His team been working on tools that can identify the applications users are running and spot any problems by looking at the network traffic they generate.

For this week’s Patch Monday podcast I also spoke with Neil Readshaw, cloud security lead architect with IBM Global Services. He says that over the last year or so, people started to understand the differences between public clouds, private clouds and hybrids, and what those differences can mean for security.

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