(gentle music)
>> The cybersecurity landscape has changed dramatically
over the past 24 to 36 months.
Rapid cloud migration has created a new layer
of security defense, sure,
but that doesn't mean CISOs can relax.
In many respects it further complicates
or at least changes the CISO's scope of responsibilities.
In particular, the threat surface has expanded
and that creates more seams
and CISOs have to make sure their teams pick up
where the hyperscaler clouds leave off.
Application developers
have become a critical execution point for cyber assurance.
Shift left is the kind of new buzz phrase for devs,
but organizations still have to shield right,
meaning the operational teams
must continue to partner with SecOps
to make sure infrastructure is resilient.
So it's no wonder that ETR's latest survey
of nearly 1500 CIOs and IT buyers
that business technology executives
cite security as their number one priority
well ahead of other critical technology initiatives
including collaboration software, cloud computing,
and analytics rounding out the top four.
But budgets are under pressure and CISOs have to prioritize.
It's not like they have an open checkbook.
They have to contend with other key initiatives
like those just mentioned to secure the funding.
And what about zero trust?
Can you go out and buy zero trust
or is it a framework, a mindset,
and a series of best practices applied
to create a security consciousness
throughout the organization?
Can you implement zero trust?
In other words, if a machine or human
is not explicitly allowed access, then access is denied.
Can you implement that policy
without constricting organizational agility?
The question is, what's the most practical way
to apply that premise,
and what role does infrastructure play as the enforcer?
How does automation play in the equation?
The fact is that today's approach to cyber type resilience
can't be an either, or,
it has to be an and conversation.
Meaning you have to ensure data protection
while at the same time advancing the mission
of the organization
with as little friction as possible.
And don't even talk to me about the edge.
That's really going to keep you up at night.
Hello and welcome to the special "CUBE" presentation,
A Blueprint for Trusted Infrastructure
made possible by Dell Technologies.
In this program, we explore the critical role
that trusted infrastructure plays
in cyber security strategies,
how organizations should think about the infrastructure side
of the cyber security equation,
and how Dell specifically approaches securing infrastructure
for your business.
We'll dig into what it means to transform and evolve
toward a modern security infrastructure
that's both trusted and agile.
First up are Pete Gerr and Steve Kenniston.
They're both senior cyber security consultants
at Dell Technologies,
and they're going to talk about the company's philosophy
and approach to trusted infrastructure.
And then we're going to speak to Paris Akudadi
who's a senior consultant for storage at Dell Technologies
to understand where and how storage plays
in this trusted infrastructure world.
And then finally, Rob Emsley,
who heads product marketing
for data protection and cyber security.
He's going to take a deeper dive with Rob into data protection
and explain how it has become a critical component
of a comprehensive cyber security strategy.
Okay, Let's get started.
Pete Gerr, Steve Kenniston welcome to "theCUBE."
Thanks for coming into the Malborough Studios today.
>> Great to be here Dave.
Thanks. >> Thanks, Dave.
Good to see you.
>> Great to see you guys.
Pete, start by talking about the security landscape.
You heard my little wrap up front.
What are you seeing?
>> I thought you wrapped it up really well
and you touched on all the key points, right?
Technology is ubiquitous today.
It's everywhere.
It's no longer confined to a monolithic data center.
It lives at the edge, it lives in front of us,
it lives in our pockets and smartphones.
Along with that is data.
And as you said,
organizations are managing sometimes 10 to 20 times
the amount of data that they were just five years ago.
And along with that,
cyber crime has become a very profitable enterprise.
In fact, it's been more than 10 years
since the NSA chief actually called cyber crime
the biggest transfer of wealth in history.
That was 10 years ago.
And we've seen nothing but accelerating cyber crime
and really sophistication
of how those attacks are perpetrated.
And so the new security landscape
is really more of an evolution.
We're finally seeing security catch up
with all of the technology adoption, all the build-out,
the work from home and work from anywhere
that we've seen over the last couple of years.
We're finally seeing organizations,
and really it goes beyond the IT directors.
It's a board level discussion today.
Security's become a board level discussion.
>> Yeah, I think that's true as well.
It's like it used to be that security was,
okay, the SecOps team, you're responsible for security.
Now you've got the developers are involved.
The business lines are involved.
It's part of onboarding for most companies.
Steve, this concept of zero trust,
it was kind of a buzzword before the pandemic
and I feel like I've often said it's now become a mandate,
but it's still fuzzy to a lot of people.
How do you guys think about zero trust?
What does it mean to you?
How does it fit?
>> Yeah, again, I thought your opening was fantastic
in this whole lead into what is zero trust.
It had been a buzzword for a long time.
And now ever since the federal government came out
with their implementation or desire to drive zero trust,
a lot more people are taking a lot more seriously
'cause they don't think they've seen the government do this.
But ultimately it's just like you said, right?
If you don't have trust to those particular devices,
applications, or data,
you can't get at it.
The question is, and you phrase it perfectly,
can you implement that
as well as allow the business
to be as agile as it needs to be
in order to be competitive?
'Cause we're seeing with your whole notion around DevOps
and the ability to kind of build, make, deploy,
build, make, deploy, right?
They still need that functionality,
but it also needs to be trusted, it needs to be secure,
and things can't get away from you.
>> Yeah, so it's interesting.
We've attended every re:Inforce since 2019
and the narrative there is,
hey, everything in the cloud is great,
and this narrative around, oh, security is a big problem,
doesn't help the industry.
The fact is that the big hyperscalers,
they're not strap for talent, but CISOs are.
They don't have the capabilities to really apply
all these best practices.
They're playing whackamole.
So they look to companies like yours to take your R and D
and bake it into security products and solutions.
So what are the critical aspects
of the so-called Dell Trusted Infrastructure
that we should be thinking about?
>> Yeah, well, Dell Trusted Infrastructure for us
is a way for us to describe the work that we do
through design, development,
and even delivery of our IT system.
So Dell Trusted Infrastructure includes our storage,
it includes our servers, our networking,
our data protection, our hyper-converged,
everything that infrastructure always has been.
It's just that today customers consume that infrastructure
at the edge, as a service, in a multi-cloud environment.
I mean, I view the cloud as really a way for organizations
to become more agile and to become more flexible,
and also to control costs.
I don't think organizations move to the cloud
or move to a multi-cloud environment
to enhance security.
So I don't see cloud computing as a panacea for security,
I see it as another attack surface.
And another aspect in front
that organizations and security organizations
and departments have to manage.
It's part of their infrastructure today,
whether it's in their data center, in a cloud,
or at the edge.
>> I think that's a huge point because a lot of people think,
"Oh, data's in the cloud, I'm good."
So it's like, Steve, we've talked about,
oh, why do I have to back up my data?
It's in the cloud?
Well, you might have to recover it someday.
So (laughs) I don't know if you have anything to add to that
or any additional thoughts on it.
>> No, I think like what Pete was saying,
when it comes to all these new vectors for attack surfaces,
people did choose the cloud
in order to be more agile, more flexible.
And all that did was open up to the CISOs
who need to pay attention to now, okay,
where can I possibly be attacked?
I need to be thinking about, is that secure?
And part of that is Dell now also understands
and thinks about as we're building solutions,
is it a trusted development life cycle?
So we have our own trusted development life cycle.
How many times in the past
did you used to hear about vendors saying
you got to patch your software because of this?
We think about what changes to our software
and what implementations and what enhancements we deliver
can actually cause from a security perspective
and make sure we don't give up
or have security become a hole
just in order to implement a feature.
We got to think about those things.
>> Yeah.
>> And as Pete alluded to our secure supply chain,
so all the way through knowing what you're going to get
when you actually receive it
is going to be secure and not be tapered with
becomes vitally important.
And Pete and I were talking earlier,
when you have tens of thousands of devices
that need to be delivered,
whether it be storage or laptops or PCs or whatever it is,
you want to be know that those devices can be trusted.
>> Okay guys, maybe Pete, you could talk about
how Dell thinks about its framework
and its philosophy of cyber security,
and then specifically what Dell's advantages are
relative to the competition.
>> Yeah, definitely, Dave, thank you.
So we've talked a lot about Dell as a technology provider,
but one thing Dell also is
is a partner in this larger ecosystem.
We realize that security,
whether it's a zero trust paradigm
or any other kind of security environment
is an ecosystem with a lot of different vendors.
So we look at three areas.
One is protecting data in systems.
We know that it starts with and ends with data.
That helps organizations combat threats
across their entire infrastructure.
And what it means is Dell's embedding security features
consistently across our portfolios
of storage, servers, networking.
The second is enhancing cyber resiliency.
Over the last decade, a lot of the funding and spending
has been in protecting or trying to prevent cyber threats,
not necessarily in responding to
and recovering from threats.
We call that resiliency.
Organizations need to build resiliency
across their organization.
So not only can they withstand a threat,
but they can respond, recover,
and continue with their operations.
And the third is overcoming security complexity.
Security is hard.
It's more difficult
because of the things we've talked about,
about distributed data, distributed technology,
and attack surfaces everywhere.
And so we're enabling organizations to scale confidently,
to continue their business,
but know that all the IT decisions that they're making
have these intrinsic security features
and are built and delivered in a consistent secure way.
>> So as kind of the three pillars.
Maybe we could end on what you guys see
as the key differentiators that people should know about
that Dell brings to the table.
Maybe each of you could take a shot at that.
>> Yeah, I think first of all
from a holistic portfolio perspective,
the secure supply chain
and the secure development life cycle
permeate through everything Dell does when building things.
So we build things with security in mind.
All the way from, as Pete mentioned,
from creation to delivery,
we want to make sure you have that secure device or asset.
That permeates everything from servers, networking,
storage, data protection,
through hyper converged, through everything.
That to me is really a key asset
because that means you understand when you receive something
it's a trusted piece of your infrastructure.
I think the other core component to think about,
and Pete mentioned,
as Dell being a partner
for making sure you can deliver these things,
is that even though those are that's part of our framework,
these pillars are our framework
of how we want to deliver security.
It's also important to understand that we are partners
and that you don't need to rip and replace.
But as you start to put in new components,
you can be assured that the components that you're replacing
as you're evolving, as you're growing,
as you're moving to the cloud,
as you're moving to more on-prem type services or whatever,
that your environment is secure.
I think those are two key things.
>> Got it, okay, Pete, bring us home.
>> Yeah, I think one of the big advantages of Dell
is our scope and our scale, right?
We're a large technology vendor
that's been around for decades
and we develop and sell almost every piece of technology.
We also know that organizations
might make different decisions.
And so we have a large services organization
with a lot of experienced services people
that can help customers along their security journey,
depending on whatever type of infrastructure
or solutions that they're looking at.
The other thing we do is make it very easy
to consume our technology,
whether that's traditional on-premise,
in a multi-cloud environment, or as a service.
And so the best of breed technology
can be consumed in any variety of fashion
and know that you're getting that consistent,
secure infrastructure that Dell provides.
>> Well and Dell's got probably a top supply chain
not only in the tech business, but probably any business.
And so you can actually take your dog food
and then allow other people your champagne, sorry.
Allow other people to share best practices
with your customers.
All right, guys, thanks so much
for coming to "theCUBE." >> Thank you.
>> Appreciate it. >> Thanks, Dave.
>> Okay, keep it right there.
After the short break,
we'll be back to drill into the storage domain.
You're watching A Blueprint
for Trusted Infrastructure on "theCUBE,"
the leader in enterprise and emerging tech coverage.
Be right back.