Here at the well-heeled Gartner IT Security Conference at the brand new, spectacular Gaylord National hotel. The hotel is only 2 months old or so, but it is supposedly the largest on the East coast and really first rate. Also, the Gartner folks put on a first rate show, though it is on the pricey side for everyone from exhibitors to attendees. Vendors who really want to have a big presence are in for big bucks reaching a relatively small number of customers. It was good to run into a number of StillSecure customers here at the show. Even though we did not exhibit our presence was felt in several of the tracks discussing security solution areas that we offer products in.
While at the show I had a chance to catch up with several other security vendors. One fellow I spoke to was Phil Neray of Guardium. Guardium is best known for providing database security to many of the largest financial institutions and other large companies. They recently announced a major new release of their flagship product with something they call "S-GATE". I won't bore you with all of the details but the gist of it is that for the first time database security can move from passively reporting or alerting of data access violations to actively blocking such violations.
For me the active versus passive mode of security is one that transcends different layers of security. Whether we are talking about IDS passive response versus IPS active response, vulnerability scanning passively assessing and reporting to NAC testing and blocking access, to now database access, ultimately security follows a similar route. First comes the ability to actually detect. Often times the ability to detect is a major step up from what was available before. The next evolutionary phase is to be able to prevent or block the dangerous or malicious event from taking place.
This active blocking mode though is often not as readily accepted at first by the market. Everyone is always afraid of blocking the wrong user, the wrong email message or other request. I think it is part of human nature that we inherently distrust our technology to block, always thinking it will block legitimate traffic. This has been true in every security technology I have seen. Eventually active response does win out, but it takes time and there are always doubters. It will be interesting if what Guardium has done here is viewed with the same suspicions at first and than catches on or not. We will have to watch.
