Security teams and the bad guys that would best them are the Hatfields and McCoys of IT. As fast as security specialists come up with new protections, the hackers and bots are trailing right behind with new ways to penetrate them. Accepting their occurrence as more or less perennial, teams now focus on responding smarter to threats.

Sean Convery, VP and GM of the Security Business Unit at ServiceNow, Inc., said that one problem with the old way of doing things was treating all threats as equally dangerous. He told Dave Vellante (@dvellante) and Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, even compliance requirements have been an obstacle to smart security choices, sometimes giving strict grace periods for dealing with a threat.

“Even if it’s a low-priority vulnerability, you might have that be higher in the queue than something more critical that actually will impact the security of the organization,” Convery explained.

IT-security osmosis

The irony, said Convery, is that the keys to better threat response are right under security’s nose — in general IT. Rapid exchange of information from one department to the other can enable smarter choices in real time.

Instead of treating all threats as equal, he said, “Tell me who owns the particular IP address that’s being attacked right now, and tell me the service that IP address is supporting. Is this my summer company picnic planning website, or is this my financial reporting infrastructure?”

He said that SeviceNow’s reach into enterprise, workflows, automation and other non-security areas enable them to offer better security. “This feels like a new category of security technology, and one that really leverages ServiceNow’s expertise.”

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of ServiceNow Knowledge16.

Photo by SiliconANGLE