Deploying New Tools to Stop the Hackers

By CHRISTOPHER DREW and VERNE G. KOPYTOFF
NYT

Trying to secure a computer network is much like trying to secure a building — the challenge is trying to screen out real threats without impeding the normal traffic that needs to go in and out.

And as the recent hacking attacks against Citigroup, RSA Security and Lockheed Martin show, even sophisticated security systems can be breached.

“We’re seeing an inflection point where the attackers are extremely smart, and they are using completely new techniques,” said Nir Zuk, the chief technology officer at Palo Alto Networks, a firewall company based in Santa Clara, Calif. “Every piece of content that you receive can attack you.”

Historically, the first line of computer defense, the firewall, is like the guard desk at a building. It scrutinizes the traffic going in and out of the system, looking for obviously suspicious characters.

(More here.)