Cyber and Network Security Innovation: Why Big Companies are Investing by ECPI University

Cyber and Network Security Innovation: Why Big Companies are Investing

As the internet has grown ever more interwoven through every aspect of our lives, the ability to securely process data has become just as critical a part of any company's infrastructure. In the past, a company may have been able to casually rely on third-party software to keep their customers' data safe, but unfortunately, those days are no more. Each passing day reveals more threats to customers, each successive breach results in only greater financial burdens for the company whose security failed, and each failure diminishes customer confidence in their merchants' ability to serve them safely.

Then what is a company to do? Over the last few years, one of the most exciting trends in cyber-security has been to more closely integrate the security components into the server itself. This comes with its own challenges, and perhaps the most difficult has been the struggle to ensure that hardware performance can keep pace with the increasing demands that security tasks place upon it.

The struggle boils down to one aspect: speed. Wrestling greater speed out of a machine has become a far less rewarding enterprise than it used to be, though quantum computing and other exciting technologies hope to offer a solution to that particular problem in the next few years. Insisting, however, on passing every transaction through multiple layers of security requires that the computer running those transactions be able to keep pace with the tasks of decoding each piece of data, performing the necessary operations, and then re-encoding it before sending it along its way.

Enter IBM's new Cyberframe. IBM has released a new server, the z13s; and it promises to offer the best of all possible worlds in cyber-security. Many of the specific technical details have not been released, but the effects are incredible. The z13s has decryption abilities directly built in to the server, allowing it to vastly reduce the load it must take on in the process of securely managing data.

To best understand the z13s, the right place to start is the previous technology, the z13. This server was revolutionizing in that it provided an unprecedented amount of power, churning through transactions at rates that were previously unthinkable. But it had a downside. Like many of the servers at that time, it did not offer built-in security support, requiring the end-user to employ third party security software and hardware outside of the direct operation of their server.

IBM has changed this with the z13s. Now, the security components are built directly into the machine. This offers two particular benefits to the consumer. First, by providing the security apparatus alongside the server itself, IBM is able to offer a substantially greater degree of support to their users. All parts are made, sold, and supported in-house. This way, should something go wrong, they can keep customers' servers working as needed. Secondly, and perhaps most of all, IBM's ability to integrate security systems into their server architecture reduces the weaknesses available for cyber-attacks.

The end result of all this is a machine that can process financial transactions at dizzying speeds. The z13 was able to process 2.5 billion transactions in a day. This is the equivalent of 100 cyber Mondays each day. IBM has not been specific about the speed with which the z13s can process these transactions, but claims that it is capable of encrypting and decrypting data at twice the rates of its predecessors. This speed, coupled with the robust processing power of the z13 will offer businesses the ability to comfortably keep up with large-scale transactions even as steadily more commerce moves to an entirely online marketplace. The future of server security is developing even as you read this, and the z13s is a clear indicator of the slimmer, more built-in direction in which it is moving.

If developments like these get you excited, perhaps a career in Cyber and Network Security is for you. At ECPI University, we offer an accredited Bachelor's degree program in Cyber and Network Security that could give you all the training and experience you need to enter this exciting and dynamic career field. Our accelerated coursework and year-round schedule could have you earning your degree in as little as 2.5 years! Contact ECPI today to find out how you get started on a new career path!  It could be The Best Decision You Ever Make!

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