“If you want to buy a phone that is safe, buy a 10-year old Nokia!” is the advice given by Christof Jungo, head of security architecture for telecoms provider Swisscom AG.

Speaking with John Furrier of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, at Splunk .conf 2015 in Las Vegas, Jungo talked about the increased security risks faced by large telecoms such as Swisscom. With an average of 1 million attacks daily, and with attacks no longer only from vandals but from more sophisticated, organized groups, Swisscom has moved from a defensive security approach to one where it assumes it has been breached.

“We are not focused on prevention. We are focused on detection,” Jungo told Furrier.

iPhones as likely to be infected by malware as Android devices

Taking a bottom-up approach, Swisscom designs the system as securely as possible, but from that point acts on the assumption that there is a breach and spends the resources looking for breaches rather than trying to prevent them.

Attacks occur on both the network and application levels across all devices. Jungo surprised theCUBE by announcing that according to Swisscom’s data, iPhones are as likely to be infected by malware as Android-based devices. Jungo joked that the only safe phones now are older models.

Benefits of machine learning

Jungo also spoke about the “three clicks” ease of new Splunk cyber-security features and the benefits of machine learning. When Furrier asked about the impact of the Internet of Things on security, Jungo discussed potential security issues, saying, “The perimeter will be defined by the things you own or rent.”

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Splunk .conf2015.

Also, join in on the live conversation at https://www.crowdchat.net/SplunkConf.

Photo by SiliconANGLE