Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
By Ash Patel, Marketing Specialist. Recently we reached out to John Linford, Security & OTTF Forum Director, for The Open Group, to discuss his role, industry advice, updates within his Forum and lots more. Thank you again to John for his time and for giving us an expansive look into his Forum at large. Please see the full interview below:
In late July, The Open Group hosted an event bringing together speakers and practitioners from around the world to meet in Washington, DC at the historical Mayflower Hotel, and discuss some of today’s most vital topics in the area of security and resiliency.
With a focus on Zero Trust Architecture and Supply Chain Security, leaders from businesses including Microsoft, IBM, Micro Focus, and ServiceNow joined experts from public sector organizations like NIST and NASA, together with representatives from The Open Group itself, to explore how open standards are driving important developments and actionable insights in these important and developing topics.
On May 12, 2021, President Joe Biden issued the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. This EO enumerates that “…the prevention, detection, assessment, and remediation of cyber incidents is a top priority and essential to national and economic security.” The EO contains a significant level of detail regarding areas of improvement for federal IT systems, as well as policy responses to be implemented by the government in support of greater security for private and public IT systems. The EO mentions in some detail the shift to zero trust security as a part of what is needed to combat cyber threats, as well as increased reliance on enhanced supply chain security.
Nikhil Kumar, ZTA Working Group Co-Chair & President, Applied Technology Solutions, Inc. Mark Simos, ZTA Working Group Co-Chair & Lead Cybersecurity Architect, Microsoft Altaz Valani,
In the world of technology, there are paradigms of language that arise organically and artificially over time. Necessity requires a shared mode of communication for ideas and as a result, descriptors, nouns, and technical designators are created and shared. The problem arises when certain words acquire a surfeit of meaning, so much so that they paradoxically become less meaningful. There are many examples of this but for our purposes, we’re going to look at “Supply Chain Security”.
By Jim Hietala (VP, BD and Security), Andras Szakal (VP and CTO), John Linford Security and OTTF Forum Director) – The Open Group
In potentially the most damaging cyber-supply chain attack ever, a leading IT systems management vendor became the latest hi-tech company to suffer a major cybersecurity breach with wide-reaching consequences. The malware that caused the attack has been dubbed SUNBURST by Microsoft and code-named Solorigate by FireEye, the security consulting firm that uncovered the breach after falling victim to it late last year.
After successfully infiltrating the development environment, attackers were able to observe and learn how to subvert the vendor’s development and operations pipeline. Hackers were then able to maliciously taint the vendor’s product by planting a sophisticated trojan. Once the software, which required broad systems access, was installed in customers’ environments, the attackers were able to leverage the tainted software to exfiltrate sensitive information from within an organization’s network.
The Open Group is proud to announce that Andras Szakal will be taking the role of Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. He will be responsible for leading the company’s technical strategy and strategic technical vision for evolving standards.
In the ongoing transition to Digital-First, an increasing number of technology executives, managers, and practitioners are looking for new approaches that will help them to make sense of the evolving business landscape and deliver digital products and services.
As an organization that is known for solving business issues through global industry collaboration, The Open Group hosted its third virtual event October 26-29, 2020, which provided over 3,300 registrants with the opportunity to discover the critical digital standards that enable a smooth transition to a Digital-First enterprise.
The Open Group Open Trusted Technology Forum (OTTF) is pleased to announce that it is initiating a project to update the Open Trusted Technology Provider™ Standard (O-TTPS), a standard of The Open Group, Parts 1 and 2 to Version 2.0. The O-TTPS V2.0 Update Project will seek to update Parts 1 and 2 of the O-TTPS to reflect learnings from organizations that have successfully certified products against the standards as well as the work done by government organizations in the area of supply chain security.
The Open Group hosted its latest event at the Marriott Riverwalk in the lively city of San Antonio, Texas. On January 27 – 30, we welcomed attendees from across the globe – including decision-makers, Enterprise Architects, Data Scientists, engineers, technologists, and end-users representing many businesses and governments – to explore how organizations can utilize their growing volume of data effectively and securely as part of a digital transformation program.
By Steve Nunn, President and CEO, The Open Group
As we usher in the new decade, I would like to express my sincerest wishes for you – our valued Members, The Open Group global community, and staff – to enjoy much happiness and great success in 2020.
What a year it has been here at The Open Group! As I reflect on 2019 and consider what is to come in 2020, one thing is very clear – The Open Group is doing even more of what it does best – helping to solve real business problems through technology standards.
The Open Group hosted its latest event in Croke Park in the vibrant city of Dublin, April 29 – May 2, welcoming attendees that included decision-makers, Enterprise Architects, engineers, technologists and end-users representing many businesses and governments. The theme of this event and a topic which ran through many of the speaker sessions was ‘Digital in Practice’, covering not only the emerging digital technologies but also the standards, architectures and business frameworks that support and enable the transition to, and implementation of, the modern Digital Enterprise.