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Robert X. Cringely points out the hidden costs of running corporate IT over the public internet:
How cheap is IT, really, if it compromises customer data? Not cheap at all. Last year’s Target hack alone cost the company more than $1 billion, estimated Forrester Research. The comparably-sized Home Depot hack will probably cost about the same. JP Morgan Chase is likely to face even higher costs.
He wonders why companies aren't shifting to dedicated networks, like they used to make with leased lines.
Taking a bank or retail network back to circa 1989 would go a long way toward ending the current rash of data breaches. It would be expensive, sure, but not as expensive as losing all the money that Target and others have recently done.
Is this practical? If so, how would it be accomplished with modern equipment?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 11 2014, @03:06AM
As someone who has been involved in implementing new measures in a small number of chain retailers, many of them are indeed moving "back" to T1s and such coupled with shiny new Cisco routers and newer managed switches (managed such that each cable has to be accounted for and goes in a particular jack, partly because of the VLANs and partly because any free jacks are turned off on the switch unless/until a new device is installed & cable run is commissioned).
Unfortunately, these sorts of changes are not overnight (even though the work is performed after-hours) but there's often a gap of 1 to several months between the replacement of any given equipment, as well as the actual installation of the T1... as a result I usually have to revisit any given store 2, 3 or more times to install equipment in phases.
Over the last few months I have encountered different chains and different stores operating on everything from 3G modems to satellite and DSL (some do have fiber but not many). So far I haven't encountered any on cable though.