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SAN FRANCISCO–As the IT security threat landscape continues to change, there is a need to evolve existing approaches as well as create new ones to defend against risks. That’s the big message coming from HP’s top security executive, Art Gilliland, senior vice president of enterprise security products, at the RSA security conference here.
In a video interview with eWEEK, Gilliland provided insight into his RSA keynote about the state of cyber-security and how lessons learned from the video game “Halo” can be used in the cyber-security realm.
Gilliland emphasized that while there is a lot of talk about advanced threats, when you look at the actual data, most breaches are the result of older vulnerabilities that have not been patched by organizations. While older vulnerabilities continue to be a risk, in the new model of IT, there is a lot of infrastructure that is delivered as a service in the cloud.
The “Halo” connection is that Gilliland likes to play video games.
“If you think about the game play in version one of ‘Halo’ and how it made the Xbox platform, every subsequent version has changed the game play,” Gilliland said. “But the core engine of how it works and what matters in the game is that as it was in ‘Halo 1.'”
In terms of cyber-security, security professionals understand the basic game play–that is, the basic threats and tactics–but the game and the security environment continue to evolve.
“You need to understand and value the old school, and then there is a whole bunch of stuff you have to learn to be effective in this new era of security,” Gilliland said.
Watch the full video interview with Art Gilliland below:
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.