Cast a wary (or should that be weary?) eye on the latest security trends. So says ICI global information security director Paul Simmonds, speaking to Lisa Kelly in this week's definitive guide to security:

“Data leakage prevention (DLP) is being hyped and everyone is trying to flog it. Established vendors are tweaking existing products to DLP, while there are a whole bunch of start ups selling it. But vendors are always telling you that you have a big problem and they will solve it for you."

Simmonds has certainly got solution-obsessed vendors down to a tee. But what's all this about DLP? “We have always done DLP at ICI," says Simmonds - breaking the unwritten rule of no more than one TLA (three letter acronym) in a seven word sentence. That's 'unwritten' as in 'made up just now by me', by the way.

With regards to DLP, Simmonds says his company uses the classic 80/20 rule - 80 per cent of security is about people, processes and procedures, and only 20 per cent is about technology.

It sounds like a winning strategy. Especially as in next week's definitive guide, Freeform Dyanmics analyst Jon Collins says:

"IT leaders need to consider risks caused by their own employees, be they through malice or stupidity. Internal workers have always posed the biggest threat to computer systems - even before product categories, such as DLP, were posited."

Apparently, some vendors also refer to DLP - stay with me, here - as information leak prevention (ILP) and extrusion prevention (EP). Basically it's about putting the right security processes and systems in place. So, for DLP (or ILP and EP) read best practice through a bunch of tools and policies.

Simmonds is right to be wary about the the so-called latest security trends - but weary seems an even more appropriate sentiment, I think.

Further reading

• McAfee spam project smells like marketing guff
• Time to focus on the good in databases
• Security technology is not a priority for firms
• Flexible working creates a security nightmare
• Stop buying illegal software, or face the risks...
• How to cope with rogue IT

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Want to contact the writer? Email Mark Samuels