Cyber Defense eMagazine October Edition for 2021

Our industry has developed standard requirements of physical security, software security, access control,
etc., that tend to be rolled up into a series of compliance schemes. These compliance programs
absolutely apply in the era of edge computing and edge data centers.
The edge tends to conjure up the image of an outdated server living in a remote office (perhaps shoved
in a corner under a dusty desk). This is no longer true. Rather, massive deployments of hardware
enabling real-time, low-latency experiences (regardless of geographic region) are becoming increasingly
normal and, I would assert, will become more prevalent in the future.
Your current compliance knowledge and your current expertise remains relevant. There are new
concepts to learn, of course, and new considerations as data proliferates across the edge in global
footprints. But the basis remains the same. It’s extremely important that the tools adopted in edge
deployments support your desire to stay compliant with data regulations.
When choosing a vendor, ensure that you have the required controls to define what data and events are
cached, stored, and processed. And, given a global deployment, you are able to define this on a perregion
basis. When the internal compliance requirements are met, and appropriate certifications are
obtained, edge deployments enable a variety of new and exciting capabilities not yet feasible.
With the basics achieved, what becomes even more interesting is what edge deployment paradigms
mean for the security and compliance workflow offered by companies.
First, it’s important to understand that these edge deployments are done to extend capabilities while also
providing a fast round-trip response time. Today, it’s absolutely possible to achieve a P90 round trip
latency of less than 50ms globally. This speed, when coupled with data controls, powers exciting new
capabilities.
Consider, for example, real-time event correlation.
In a globally-deployed environment, you’re able to offer workflows that can detect complex event patterns
and isolate threats across multiple nodes in real time. In an industry like financial services, the ability to
offer both real-time decisioning and real-time compliance are dependent on strict event correlation. You
can also imagine this being broadly applicable to FINRA compliance that requires mandatory reporting
of communications and over-the-counter transactions.
As another example, think about real-time threat & anomaly detection
.
At first glance, it may seem to be a subset of the above, but the ability to perform real-time detection of
complex event patterns and threat isolation enables security alerting in a powerful new fashion. Data
manipulation functions are used to spot early trends or patterns in data and prevent or quickly respond
to business opportunities and threats.
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