Why network-based security doesn't cut it anymore

Ted Schlein has been in the thick of the IT security industry for more than 20 years. He started off building Symantec’s original antivirus software and went on to run all the enterprise product lines there. For the past 10-plus years, he has been investing in security companies for venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where his first investment was in ISS (now part of IBM). One place Schlein has been putting his money of late is into companies that secure networks at the client. He spoke this week with Online Executive News Editor Bob Brown.

Why the focus on client-side security?

The “aha” to me was about five years ago when we were doing all this network-based security prevention -- [intrusion-detection systems], antivirus gateways, etc. -- and the number of threats just kept going up, the number of exploits that were successful kept going up, and the number of dollars lost kept going up. To me that’s complete failure.

The report card I give the security world over the last 20 years is that it has done some things to slow things down but has really not prevented anything. It really got me thinking about what would I do and why. It’s no secret that networks are more porous, people come in and out of networks all the time, it’s very different than when we did the original antivirus stuff or even with the first IDSes or even when Check Point got started and you built the wall around your kingdom, which you can’t do anymore.

So the weakest points end up being the end points, and you have to start securing the actual assets themselves. Trying to block the roads won’t ever work. My focus really shifted about five years ago to: “How do we protect the actual assets?”