A financial-services firm might be the last company you’d expect to entrust its network security to an outsider. But last week, Merrill Lynch & Co. did just that, signing a global multiyear contract for VeriSign Inc. to monitor and manage more than 300 network-security devices, primarily firewalls and intrusion-detection systems. The implementation is under way and will continue through the fall, says David Bauer, Merrill Lynch’s chief information-security and privacy officer. Merrill Lynch decided to outsource network security because managed-security-service providers have substantially improved their offerings in the last couple of years. Their toolsets are robust enough to support large companies, and they can do a better job of understanding how serious a threat is because they’re monitoring scores of networks. “We can get analysis of events going on with us in context of what’s going on in the rest of the world,” Bauer says. “That allows us to make better decisions. It also gives us early warning.” Full Story
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