Based on the forensic-type evidence Verdasys produced, the rival racing team was fined $100 million along with other sanctions. The Verdasys technology allowed Ferrari to show unequivocally that the design dossier was printed at a Ferrari office; the date and time the dossier was printed; the printer that was used; the identity of the Ferrari employee who printed it; and assurance that no other Ferrari employee, contractor or partner printed the dossier or any sub-portion of it.
Not shown on that slide were a few other details I was able to find about the enormous value Ferrari realized from its engagement with Verdasys: the contract covers not just the standard Ferrari enterprise but also 20 race tracks around the globe; Ferrari was able to eliminate about $2 million in alternative security expenses that it had been incurring at racetracks; and Ferrari was able to save at least $2 million more from administrative staff cuts it was able to make.
Here's how Ferrari CIO Antonio Calabrese described Verdasys's product: "Digital Guardian helps protect our leadership position and heavy investment in R&D that is essential to winning."
In another case study, a global healthcare provider saved "more than $3.5 million on a single application-logging project with an estimated payback period (ROI) of 2 months," according to a Forrester report.
One final example: Cigna CISO Craig Shumard said a Verdasys tool for cross-application data protection "will literally save companies like ours countless dollars in application-development and reprogramming costs."
In my conversation with Stamos, he gave significant credit to a partnership his company has formed with HBGary, creator of the Digital DNA product that recognizes the digital fingerprints of various pieces of malware.
"With Zeus malware targeting the financial industry, existing tools have 30% efficacy. But with the ability to check digital fingerprints, that goes up to 98%," Stamos said "Since we added HBGary's Digital DNA product to our infrastructure, we and can get reports continuously as they happen instead of having to try to figure out retrospectively what happened."
Ah yes, the retrospective approach: too many companies are relying on that, Stamos said, and with the stakes clearly soaring and the lifeblood of their enterprises—their intellectual property—at stake, the same-old same-old approaches just won't work.
"Customers are, unfortunately, usually most attentive after some type of incident has occurred. Then a lot of companies look at traditional approaches and pick someone, like an appliance, and hope that takes care of the problem," Stamos said.
"But that won't help with intellectual property—securing credit-card numbers or Social Security numbers is very very different from securing complex data sets like IP and designs, and those other types of products just aren't appropriate for that level of protection."
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Bob Evans is senior VP and director of To find out more about Bob Evans, please visit his page. For more Global CIO perspectives, check out Global CIO, or write to Bob at [email protected]. |