Security remains a big issue with SNS, Internet of Thing
DID YOU know that one simple Facebook inquiry takes up one kilobyte multiplied by 930?
That's equal to 952,320KB or 952 megabytes that's taken up in the network by simply looking up someone's Facebook profile or clicking on a photo.
This is how social networking sites - like Facebook and Twitter - are eating up traffic in companies' networks.
According to Steve Chappell, chief operating officer of Wedge Networks, 60 per cent of the traffic in an average company's network will be Facebook.
"It is actually consuming the companies' networks," he said at a recent conference among Asia-Pacific service providers held by NetEvents in Singapore.
"People at work are usually on FB, not realising they're eating up the company's network."
Companies like Wedge work with companies and governments to filter the "bad data" such as malware and spam, stripping them from the system.
"It's like providing clean water. The same thing for service providers. They clean the water before reaching the end-users," he said.
"The amount of malware and spam differs among parts of the world. In some, 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the data are malware and spam, so there is a much higher need for a filter in some parts of the world," he said.
In North America, 18-28 per cent of the data coming in would be malware and the peak time is when children leave school, he said.
"Social media is growing faster than projected. It is now starting to be a problem. It's not bad traffic but how are we going to control it?" he asked.
Some companies have blocked social media sites from their internal systems to keep employees from accessing them during work hours and be less productive. Countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain have contracted Wedge to block certain websites from citizens.
"Security side, networks have changed. In the '80s, network PCs started to get emails. But for a long time, you controlled your server system. But now, there are no boundaries for networks anymore.
"IoT (Internet of Things) and the cloud have opened opportunities to find better ways to secure data," he said.
Potential security breaches
Amit Sinha Roy, vice president of Tata Communications, said security remains a big issue with the advent of IoT and cloud computing. Some have raised potential security breaches for sensitive or personal data, like when hackers hit the Japan Pension System recently.
"It's a choice between the nature of data against the convenience it offers...it depends on how much we are willing to share," he said.
"As long as I'm not doing something criminal or anti-social, I will be willing to give up my privacy."
But he was quick to say that health and banking info may belong to the sensitive data category.
"We live a virtual existence. Our lives are totally public today. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook - it's all the Big Data," he said.
"Practical information is okay, like GPS for example...it can save me up to 30 minutes to use a traffic app. I will never know until I run smack into traffic and by then I can't get out of it.
"What's important is how that data is used or abused. If there's a bad intention or agenda to misuse, that's the point we look at it, but we can't police everything."
IoT is expected to offer advanced connectivity of devices, systems and services, but this may also open data to security breaches.
Neil Holmquist of Spirent Communications cited Ericsson figures that more than 50 billion devices will be connected by 2020.
He estimates that a person will own an average of seven devices in five years with each connected to a certain service or system such as retail (online shopping) or medical, which is the second most breached data source.
By next year, 23.5 million cars around the world will have Internet access, up from 8.7 million in 2010, he said.
Wedge said about 700 million companies all over the world lose an estimated US$400 million (Bt13.5 billion) in revenues due to compromised records. In 60 per cent of the cases, attackers are able to compromise an organisation within minutes.
Hongwen Zhang, president and CEO of Wedge, shared his vision of how to build security right into the cloud. In 2013, Wedge launched the Cloud Network Defence, dubbed as the world's first high performance security platform designed to address threats in cloud and IoT.
"The Internet of Things needs secure network services...because nobody can secure the things. There are far too many mobile and wireless devices with an incredible variety of operating systems and hardware configurations.
"There are too many last-mile networks, from enterprise Wi-Fi to the coffee shop to the home to the playground. There are no borders. There is no trust - and there can't be trust," he said.
The best hope is to preserve end-user privacy.
"It is critical to recognise that the only way to protect users, data and services is to protect the network," he added.
