The extended enterprise, Part 2

This week Network World has been taking a look at the world of the extended enterprise via our patented Signature Series issues.  The extended enterprise is where  local employees, remote and mobile workers, customers, resellers, suppliers, other business partners are all  have access to corporate information and workflow processes from anywhere they want.

One of the biggest obstacles to the extended enterprise is security.  In one of our extended enterpise articles we look at his important topic.  For example, we write that industry statistics show that 80% of malicious attacks target Port 80, the Web traffic pass-through. But the onus for Web application protection still falls largely on network-layer devices. Web applications clearly need special security, our story states. 

Firewalls specifically designed to protect Web applications would recognize a hacker’s attempt to create a buffer overflow, to inject false SQL or system commands in program variables, or to otherwise manipulate the data stream for ill purposes. Web application firewalls see the breaches that network-layer firewalls or  intrusion-detection systems are not capable of detecting.

This is just one of the myriad topics our package will cover.  Take a look: www.nwfusion.com/ee2/2003/