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Gene Hodges joined Websense in early 2006 to drive the companys growth,
set the strategic vision, and manage the global operations of the business.
Under his leadership, Websense has expanded its business to deliver intelligent
content protection solutions that include Web and email security, information
leak prevention, and an on-demand security platform. By driving the
acquisitions of PortAuthority Technologies and SurfControl, Hodges has bolstered
Websenses security offerings and doubled its customer base to more than 50,000
worldwide. Before that, he was the president at McAfee. Hodges earned a
bachelor's degree in Arts from Haverford College, Pennsylvania.
What are the key security trends dominating the market?
The security industry is a little unusual and different from other parts of
IT. In security, the attacker drives the market and they are not going to go
away. Over the last three years, we have seen a very fundamental shift from
attacks on infrastructure to attacks on data. A classical security vendors job
has been to secure the network and device. Although important, these aspects are
increasingly being marginalized, as they are not attacked any more. The
objective of viruses earlier was to make your machines crash or work at
overloading your mail. Todays attackers are focusing on data. They do not want
your machines to crash, they want to own your machine, and quietly and patiently
pump out all the information from your machine.
So, the tools built to protect the infrastructure are not safe against the
attacks on the data. There were attacks like denial of service aimed to bring
down your network. But, modern attacks are mechanisms to throttle the users
network. Our focus is on protecting the datathe central information of a
companyand our strategy focuses on protecting not the device or network link
but the data object. This gives a very different approach to how someone
implements a security policy. In 2007, the virus prevelancy curve has seen a
decline for the first time in several years.
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| Gene Hodges
CEO, Websense |
How has Websense fared in India since it started operations in 2005?
In the last two years, we have grown significantly in the areas of Web
filtering and Web security. We are excited about our future business in India,
as enterprises have started to understand Web security better than before. It is
no more a nice to have but must have solution. Our business will be driven
by market demands. Our objective is to broaden much more into the information
assurance and data security market.
Which verticals are your top priority in India?
Natural starting place for data security in India would be for
multinationals who have their operations in India, to make sure their customer
data and their intellectual property is protected. It is relevant for the
programming population to protect their IP. IT and ITeS continue to be the
leading business opportunites for us, followed by banking, telecom, retail, and
government.
What is your view about the kinds of security threats enterprises are
facing?
It is true that threat from inside activities is larger than outside. Most
issues are associated with business processes in the way it is being
transmitted. It is fair to say that fear of loss from inside activity is
greater.
What kinds of Web threats do you see SMBs facing?
These small companies will face more threats from outside, as they have a
small base of employees and they know them much better. Their business processes
are less bureaucratic and less complex, but conversely, the sophistication of
attacks from outside for their data is almost non-existent.
What Web security challenges are Web 2.0 companies facing?
Fundamentally, the core capability is to be able to identify in real time,
if user generated content has a problem. The biggest problem is malware.
Capabilities that Websense will start shipping will have the ability to
determine in real-time the malware and objectionable content coming on to the
Web 2.0 site, and provide content firewall for those sites. So the moment a user
posts an update, which has a malware on the site, this solution will take that
out in real-time. Even if it somehow gets through, the software will still
remove it. This is also possible in case of pornographic content posted on the
site.
Sudesh Prasad
sudeshp@cybermedia.co.in
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