I met Anton Grasion, the EMEA security strategist of network security specialist Juniper Networks the other day. Over a calzone the size of a small child’s head, he told me about the rapidly maturing central and eastern European markets, the perils of zombiefied PCs (as I believe they’re known in the trade) and how most insider threats come from harmless simpletons. Which I suppose is already pretty much suspected by your average CISO anyway, although it doesn’t make it any easier to mitigate these risks; sometimes stupidity knows no bounds…

He also sympathised with IT directors given the thankless task of moving over to SOAs while trying to keep operating costs down – doing more with their network but without adding complexity. And Grasion maintained interoperability is key if you want to be successful in the industry, before explaining how Cisco’s business model has led to its forced entry into new markets. You can only get the most out of their network if they are the only provider, but as they become more successful the market gets more difficult to grow. Or so the argument goes.

There was a final entreaty before coffee to application, network and general IT security staff to work together more closely to create more coherent policy. The more companies adopt converged IP networks the higher the risks are likely to be and the more that risk needs to be balanced with the business benefits. Thankless task…but a nice pizza.