Information Unleashed: The Official Voice of Symantec

Information Unleashed is the official Symantec corporate blog, brought to you by the Symantec leadership team.  Our executives will use this blog as a place to communicate directly with our customers and partners and to share updates on company strategy, highlights from company news or discuss their opinions on the state of the industry.  We invite you to participate in the conversation and share your comments or questions.

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  Created: Danny Milrad 09 May 2013

  NASDAQ CIO Forum: Building a Solid and Reliable Business Continuity Plan

  Last fall businesses across the Eastern Coast of the United States were heavily impacted by the devastating effect of Hurricane Sandy. For several of our customers the storm underscored the importance of establishing a defined business continuity process. While the safety of people is always the first priority, the impact of similar events on government services, corporations and small businesses was tremendous and needs to be addressed long term. Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in Symantec’s CIO Forum in New York City that preceded the NASDAQ Closing Bell Ceremony. At the event, Symantec customers and partners discussed the importance of ensuring business continuity, specifically in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. These professionals were responsible for business critical data located directly in the storm’s path and needed...
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  Created: bduckering 24 Apr 2013

  Survey: Despite Security Incidents, BYOD Worth The Risks

  When it comes to mobile, BYOD is definitely here to stay. But, is it worth the risk? This year at Symantec Vision we wanted to better understand our customers’ perceptions of how personally owned mobile devices are used in their organization.  To do this, we conducted a survey of 236 attendees asking how their company is addressing BYOD, including risks, challenges, polices, usage and management of mobile devices. What we found is that while most organizations allow employees to use personal mobile devices for business purposes, they also accept that doing so will likely result in a mobile security incident. Survey...
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  Created: Steve Bennett CEO 24 Apr 2013

  Something we can all feel good about

  We spend a lot of time talking about our company goals, offerings, marketing and sales, and the Symantec 4.0 transition. As a global company with employees in more than 50 countries, we have the unique ability to address some of society's biggest challenges as part of our business goals... we also have a bigger responsibility to make our world better. Over the past several months, I’ve talked about corporate responsibility a lot internally – we’re  striving for corporate responsibility leadership. But right now, I'd like to focus on one aspect of corporate responsibility and talk about what our employees are doing to contribute to our local communities. Last fiscal year, we set a goal to raise our employee volunteering hours by 20 percent....
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  Updated: Symantec Corp. 18 Apr 2013

  Symantec Vision: Moving Forward, Boldly Facing Challenges

  Symantec Vision gave us a lot to think about, and we were fortunate to hear from Symantec leadership, who shared important insights about the current state of information security and the direction of the company moving forward. First, Symantec’s CEO Steve Bennett shared his experience over the past several months as the company has worked to redefine its focus on solving our customers’ problems and achieving organic growth. He reiterated that we are committed to intelligent, manageable changes that will revitalize Symantec, the partner community and the world of information protection. We also heard from Francis deSouza, president of product and services at Symantec who delved into today’s...
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  Updated: Kevin Haley 15 Apr 2013

  ISTR 18: Making Sense of Some Big Numbers

  Some of us are numbers people.  We like nothing more than digging into a big batch of numbers.  I confess I’m the other type of person. I still fumble around a spreadsheet and can’t add without the aid of a calculator. For numbers people the ISTR is a terrific document. This year’s report is 160 pages of numbers that do a pretty good job of describing the threat landscape. If you’re a numbers person, feel free to dig in to the full report. You can also check out highlights in this graphic. If you’re like me, and not really a numbers person, then read on. I’ve bullied my way through the numbers so you don’t have to. Let me give you the highlights, some of the interesting...
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  Created: Symantec Corp. 26 Mar 2013

  Knowing Is Half the Battle for Today’s CISOs

    By Joe Bertnick, Director of Product Management, Symantec Corp. On the battlefield, a general’s responsibility is to coordinate different bodies of soldiers whose commanders may not know what the others are doing. The complete picture of the battle only emerges when these individual reports can be combined and analyzed, yielding a strategy to ensure victory. Just as modern war has come to involve smaller bodies of soldiers carrying out specific missions, our security tools in the data center are addressing new and unique risks to different parts of the security ecosystem. In this world, the CISO is the general directing our overall efforts, merging the “in the trenches” technical details with the overall strategic direction of the business. And they need to be able to gather this intelligence anywhere, at any time, because security incidents aren’t limited to office hours. And while technology...
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  Updated: Symantec Corp. 21 Mar 2013

  Protecting Reputation, Business and Customers in Today’s Extended Vendor Ecosystem

  By Cheryl Tang, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Symantec Corp. In today’s global economy, it’s no secret that many organizations rely on third parties for critical business activities. While outsourcing isn’t a new concept, the rise of readily available cloud-based and everything-as-a-service solutions is rapidly increasing an organization’s liability and risk landscape – often with limited IT oversight. Unfortunately many enterprises relying on third-party vendors often assume that these third parties properly protect their sensitive employee, customer and business data. Sadly, this is not always the case. Consider these data points: Only 24 percent of respondents require third-party suppliers or partners to comply with baseline security procedures.[1] Although 84 percent of senior IT decision makers [were] concerned or very concerned about the risks...
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  Updated: Tim_Matthews 14 Mar 2013

  RSA Show Floor Survey: Mobility making it easier for insiders to take IP

  The show floor at RSA was buzzing with discussion of attacks against critical infrastructure and state-sponsored attacks – the words hactivist and A.P.T. were uttered frequently.  But, while cyber-espionage was making headlines from the show, Symantec took the opportunity to survey information security pros on insider issues related to data access and mobility. The findings show that although 76 percent of businesses saw cyberattacks in the past year, increased use of mobile devices is making the insider threat more relevant than ever before. It should come as no surprise that the top three motivators for the move to mobility are: business drivers, user demand and financial...
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  Updated: Cecily Joseph 25 Feb 2013

  More Than $1 Million Committed to Education

  Education – particularly science, technology, engineering, and math education, as well as equal access to education around the globe – is a strong focus for Symantec. This is why we’ve announced more than $1 million in grant funding to education-focused initiatives today. With these funds, we’ve started some new relationships with institutions focused on education, reflecting our growth in this space and our maturation as a global company, and strengthened our relationships with some long-standing partners with whom we’ve worked for many years. These latest grants give us an opportunity to more fully apply our resources in terms of employee time and talent, and to expand our reach into new geographic areas. The...
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  Updated: FranRosch 11 Mar 2013

  Early Adoption of Mobility Pays Off

  Successful technology adoption requires managing the drawbacks while maximizing the benefits, and few trends today illustrate this better than mobility. We’re seeing a wide variety in the degree to which organizations are allowing employees to use mobile devices for business, as well as the amount of control they are exerting over devices and applications. To see the results of these different philosophies and determine how organizations can get the most out of their mobile deployment, Symantec surveyed more than 3,000 organizations, from SMBs to large enterprises. Innovators and Traditionals We asked the businesses about their level of involvement with mobility, and noted two distinct groups among the...