IBM strengthens NATO’s cybersecurity – SiliconANGLE

Starting this January, IBM Corp. began working with the NATO Communications and Information Agency to help strengthen the Alliance’s cybersecurity posture.

IBM is working with the organization to improve its security visibility and asset management across NATO enterprise networks. As part of the agreement, IBM Consulting has been tasked with building a customized solution that will provide NATO with a unified view of its security landscape.

“With the attack surface that NATO has, it’s quite a different ballgame,” said Tim Van den Heede (pictured, right), vice president of global security services sales at IBM Consulting. “They engaged us on a three-year program to transform … to get full visibility on all their assets, their controls and their patches in order to drive the vulnerability management program. Instruments for NATO are the land, sea, air, space. Now, the fifth one is cybersecurity.”

Van den Heede spoke with theCUBE Research’s Dave Vellante at the RSA Conference, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. He was joined by Dimple Ahluwalia (left), vice president and global managing partner of cybersecurity services at IBM Consulting, and they discussed the evolving quantum landscape and trends among customers in the cybersecurity arena. (* Disclosure below.)

IBM works with clients to define quantum-safe practices

Along with assisting the 32 counties from Europe and North America that comprise NATO, IBM Consulting is also working to address key cybersecurity trends. This includes the looming potential for quantum computing to change public key cryptography.

“Quantum computing definitely is real,” Ahluwalia said. “The business cases and application use cases are being proven day in and day out. There is a defined timeline of when this could become reality around introduction of threats. Where we’re at is having very clear conversations with our clients’ boards to help educate them around the potential, the good sides for quantum adoption, but also looking at quantum-safe and how they need to be assessing their environment.”

In their roles with IBM Consulting, Van den Heede and Ahluwalia both have an opportunity to spot trends in the cybersecurity area, based on what customers are seeking in the enterprise world.

“Areas of investment have been around traditional IT security,” Ahluwalia said. “We see that expanding in a big way around operational technology, or OT. We also see areas where security is being positioned early for conversation as businesses and governments look at expanding their areas and adoption of new technology. We see security being thought of earlier enough these days.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the RSA Conference:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the RSA Conference. Neither RSA Conference LLC, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE