Add to this the proliferation of personal data being shared across various platforms and today’s online world becomes a perfect breeding ground for cyber-attack. Our research also revealed more than 50 per cent of consumers spend at least 15 hours a week using their devices for personal reasons. Naturally, spending so much time online means that consumers are now rapidly accumulating a vast array of digital assets – such as photographs, music tracks and documents – all stored on their devices. For example, the average Brit keeps 3,000 digital assets on their tablet and smartphone devices, including sensitive information such as financial records, drivers’ licences and passports.

The value we place on these digital assets often surpasses that of the many tangible, physical items we own. In the UK especially, consumers are putting a high price tag on their digital lives – up to $22,7234 (17,745 euros – £15,000) – worth of value. Digital items containing personal records have the highest value at over $303 (235 euros – £200) per item, whilst personal memories such as photographs and videos are valued at $27.50 (22 euros – £18) per item.

Many of us insure the physical contents of our homes without a second thought. However, in today’s digital age, data is quickly becoming a constant and substantial part of our lives. As the value of our digital assets increases, the responsibility to protect it from theft or loss should grow in line with it.

This is why we’ve worked with Intel on a new service that protects a consumer’s entire digital life. As I said in my previous blog post, on the 14^th May, we announced McAfee LiveSafe, the first unlimited cross-device security service that uses cutting-edge facial and voice recognition technology to protect users’ digital lives. This solution delivers on the joint vision that we share with Intel to redefine the consumer security experience, enabling users to connect with confidence by protecting their data, identity and all devices.

McAfee LiveSafe is the needed response to today’s evolving cyber security landscape and the increasing need for protection on our mobile devices. The memories we create online are often irreplaceable and impossible to recreate, re-download or repurchase. Rather than leave ourselves unprotected and vulnerable to having these memories taken away from us, LiveSafe enables the consumer to continue their digital life, in the knowledge that we are keeping it secure for them.

As a leader in multi device protection, our partnership with Intel on the LiveSafe service will provide consumers with an unprecedented level of security in today’s increasingly complex digital world. Its intuitive and innovative features – biometric authentication and cloud-based storage – will hopefully help consumers to realise that, when it comes to our lives and the priceless memories we create, no measure is too big or too small to safeguard our digital assets.

Today’s youth has been brought up with the advent of the internet. As a generation of ‘digital natives’ they often know more about the ins and outs of online than their parents do.  While it’s important for children to embrace new technologies and the benefits they can bring, there are dangers in cyberspace that both children and parents need to be aware of. In many cases, parents feel intimidated about how technologically advanced their kids are and refrain from enforcing rules that are imperative for protection as kids surf and socialise online. But at what cost?

As a father of two, child internet safety is front of mind for me and I recently stumbled across some new research on the subject as I was travelling. Parenting website Netmums questioned 825 children aged between seven and 16 on their internet usage and 1,127 parents on their perceptions of kids’ online habits.

The study found that more than a quarter of children pretend to be older to access certain websites, with an additional half of respondents stating they have accidentally accessed inappropriate content online. What’s worse is that almost 30% of the parents questioned admitted to allowing their children to access the Internet without restrictions or supervision.

We commissioned our own research last year, conducted by OnePoll, which revealed similar findings. We questioned 2,000 UK parents of children aged 5 to 15 on their kids use of the internet and found:

• 82% of five year olds already own or use an internet enabled device
• 60% of parents frequently let their child surf the web without adult supervision
• One in six parents have been shocked to discover their child viewing unsuitable content
• Only 45% of parents have had a serious conversation with their child about the dangers of online; a third believe the media is responsible for educating children
• 50% of parents haven’t taken any sort of preventative measures to ensure their child can’t access inappropriate content

There’s a clear disconnect between what children are doing online and what parents believe they are getting up to. More work needs to be done to redress the balance, and McAfee is committed to the cause. In November 2012 we launched an Online Safety for Kids programme in the UK, following success for the scheme in the US. The aim of the programme is to raise awareness of the potential risks and share knowledge about how to stay safe online. Our staff volunteer to teach online safety courses at schools in the communities where they live and work, alongside an online portal that provides schools, parents and kids with handy tips and tricks on how to safely navigate cyber space.

In addition to the programme, we had our annual community day on the 16^th May, which saw McAfee employees going into schools to talk to youngsters about the dangers of the online world. This is an initiative that is very much close to my heart and, unlike the rest of my work, is something that I bring home to share with my own kids.

In order for children to take advantage of the benefits of the internet, parents have a key role to play in educating children on the dangers that lurk online. Security software is available that can restrict what kids see and do on the web, taking a lot of pressure off parents to stay current with every new risk. McAfee Family Protection is an example and is built to empower parents to say ‘yes’ to their children’s online activity, knowing they will be safe as they learn and explore.

But it’s also important that parents get involved with their kids’ online lives, and make sure they know how to act and react to what they see on the web. This should include frequent one-to-one conversations on how to practice safe online behaviour, whether they are researching their latest school project or chatting to friends. In playing an active role, parents can have peace of mind that their children are safe, protected and informed about the risks.

ENISA – the European Network and Information Security Agency – defines this concept as ‘any person having the right to have personal data rectified, erased or no longer processed.’ This essentially means that, should a member of the public want a website or company to delete his or her personal data, this request should be obliged.

The right to be forgotten, which may soon become part of EU Data Protection Regulation when member states vote in June, has caused quite a bit of controversy. From the public’s perspective, the right to be forgotten is only a good thing; growing concern regarding inaccurate or misleading information on the web has caused certain individuals to speak out about how Google searches on past failures, employment history or debt have damaged reputations today.

Despite the general consensus from the public, member states in the EU are at an impasse. Vivian Reding, the EU justice commissioner, champions the initiative, with a view to imposing serious fines on companies refusing to oblige requests to erase personal data. Yet, nine member states of the EU want to opt-out of the legislation, concerned that it’s a form of censorship that threatens online free speech. It’s worth noting the proposed legislation does not include journalistic archives, comments or articles on posts from bloggers, who are exempt under the freedom expression.

In addition to the right to be forgotten, the EU is asking for companies to notify affected individuals of personal data breaches within 24 hours. From a security perspective, any company that frequently handles consumer data should always put the customer’s interests first. Today’s “knowledge assets” are lucrative targets for cyber criminals. But determining the best course of action to protect consumer privacy is not an easy task. Transparency in how consumer data is being used and by whom is key, and implementing data governance programmes that allow businesses to monitor sensitive information is part of the solution. If customers ask for their information to be deleted from archives, then the onus is on the business to manage this process with the customer in mind.

However, it’s not just the responsibility of the business to protect customer information assets. Consumers themselves also have a role to play in ensuring their own information doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. Personal data can leak in a variety of ways. A recent survey by The Guardian asked readers on their experience of internet privacy and common complaints. These were:

·         Difficulty with erasing social media accounts and all associated data

·         Problems with Google Search function elevating outdated or incorrect results to the top of the page

·         Lack of control over pictures posted by other people

The last complaint is a common problem for people who share their passwords with loved ones. According to a recent McAfee / MSI International survey, 56% of the 1,000 respondents had shared their email details with their partner, while 50% shared other passwords such as phone PIN or social media logins. This ‘what’s mine is yours’ mentality can backfire and lead to content being posted online that wasn’t intended.

The internet is the stereotypical elephant – it never forgets. As we go about our daily lives, sending emails, writing articles online or updating social media pages, we’re leaving a digital footprint tracking our every move. While some of us may fall foul of inaccurate Google searches or dusty company archives, the best way we can protect ourselves is by controlling what we put online in the first place.

While the outlook is bright for businesses in these countries, the flip side is that all of this change and growth breeds favourable conditions for cybercrime. The cost of cybercrime in South Africa is estimated to be worth $573 million, representing 0.01% of the GDP. And as the adoption of IT, mobile and technology such as cloud computing become increasingly widespread, this figure is set to rapidly increase in 2013. While the finance and telecoms industries take security quite seriously, there are still areas that need to be improved. McAfee is committed to supporting customers in this region with our extensive portfolio of Next Generation Endpoint Security, Network Security, Security Management (SIEM), Database security and Web security solutions.

My next stop after South Africa was the McAfee Cork office, for the very intense closing week of Q1. The Cork office is the headquarters for our EMEA operations, including engineering, R&D, procurement and logistics. A few weeks ago it ranked among the Top 100 Great Place to Work in The Irish Times, so it’s always a pleasure to be in that kind of environment.

During my time in Ireland, I was interviewed by a journalist from the Irish Examiner. We discussed the growth currently taking place within the business, including the 60 new hires McAfee is making for its centre of excellence. This was particularly hot news for the journalist – earlier in the week, Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, and the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) – an organisation responsible for attracting foreign investment to Ireland – visited McAfee Co-Presidents Mike DeCesare and Todd Gebhart at the McAfee headquarters in Santa Clara.

The interview with the Irish Examiner also explored the major changes currently happening in the security market.  Due to the rise of trends such as Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) and cloud, antivirus security is no longer sufficient to protect businesses from smarter, more targeted cyberattacks. Instead, businesses need to be looking at holistic, real-time and actionable threat intelligence solutions.

The highlight of my trip to the Cork office was the McAfee Coderdojo class that was underway in the cafeteria. These Coderdojo classes are hosted every Tuesday afternoon by McAfee employees in the engineering and R&D departments, and are focused on teaching young people how to code. Our Cork office was the first to start the programme in Ireland, and it’s a great achievement for our business that I personally am proud of.

What a great Q1 the team has had. Here’s to an even better Q2!

This was actually the first time that McAfee Ireland was involved in the ‘Great Places to Work’ assessment process and it’s great to see the company being included in the list the first time around. Not only is this accolade a fantastic reward for the managers in the Cork office, it’s also a testament to the cohesive teamwork being nurtured, which of course reflects the ‘T’ of our PACT mantra. Being seen as a great place to work is not a goal in itself, but a constant journey that we at McAfee are all making together. Although, I have to say – being included in such a prestigious list is surely a sign that we are on track!

I spotted the news about the Cork office when returning to Amsterdam from a trip to the United Arab Emirates. I was in the region visiting some of our Abu Dhabi and Dubai based customers and was impressed by the general buzz and energy of the region towards innovation and nurturing talent. I was particularly impressed with one of our larger customers in Abu Dhabi – the incredible knowledge and awareness its team had of our company and portfolio was amazing, and they are doing a fantastic job of telling McAfee’s Security Connected story, as the threat of cybercrime increases in that region.

In between trips to customers, I was able to visit one of the sites of our future Cyber Defence Centre (CDC) in Dubai, which is still under construction. It will be the first forensic cyber centre able to monitor and detect cyber threats in the Middle East. The CDC in Dubai will support customers in the Middle east and Africa, with a prime focus on critical infrastructures, Oil & Gas and Financial Services customers.

While yet unfinished, I’m very proud of our progress with this centre so far – we’ve hired some of the best people in the industry to run this establishment, in anticipation of the need and demand for further customer support in this region. The CDC will be a big differentiator for our team, and with a first-class workforce to power it, the future of this centre is looking bright!

And so I returned from the Middle East, only to set off straight away to South Africa, which is where I’m writing this blog post from right now. More news to follow when I return from this part of the world, so stay tuned!

Before the trip, I spent a whole week in Russia and I’m really excited about the potential this market holds for the McAfee business. Our new office in Moscow looks great and is well-connected. We already have a first-class team in place and we’ve made significant headway in terms of certification.

As a country, Russia is a land of opportunity. The people are so entrepreneurial and dynamic. In terms of the security market in the region, there are a number of critical infrastructures in the energy sector that need to be protected and secured. With our top-notch products, deep knowledge and expertise in this domain, McAfee is well-placed to support customers in this market as it already does in other geographies. Speaking of great products, I was very pleased to hear that in the endpoint space, McAfee Deep Defender just scored 100% in a rootkit protection test. Congratulations to the team!

This aside, this week has been a very busy one for the McAfee team. After a short two days at my base in our Amsterdam office, I jetted off again to Santa Clara for a strategy meeting with the Corporate Executive team. Meanwhile, McAfee executives were representing the team both at the RSA Conference in San Francisco and at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. At RSA, Mike Fey, McAfee’s Worldwide CTO gave a compelling keynote on the fundamentals of security. He discussed how information needs to be easily accessed and easily consumed, but it also needs to be up-to-date and real-time. Organisations cannot base security decisions on past historical data, when the bad guys are one step ahead, attacking in the present.

Our vision of an integrated Security Connected platform seems to be supported by the wider security market; we recently announced the acquisition of ValidEdge Sandboxing technology. Beyond the pure acquisition of this technology, our objective is to set the bar for comprehensive malware protection, moving away from signature-based detection to behaviour-based detection, which will address the ever-changing fundamentals of security architecture and help our customers better anticipate real-time attacks. Security needs to be open and interactive. This is the reason why we created the McAfee Security Innovation Alliance (SIA), which has become the security industry’s premier technology partnering programme. It enables us to protect and optimise our customers’ existing investment while reinforcing their security posture at the same time. This week 11 new partners joined the McAfee SIA, which is great to see!

After RSAC and MWC, the coming week will see the start of CEBIT in Hannover. Our DACH team will be onsite on a pretty impressive designer stand with outstanding demos. Next week will also be very busy for the team in Amsterdam; we’ll be running our Executive week at our Executive Briefing Center (EBC) with our co-president Mike DeCesare, Candace Worley SVP andGeneral Manager Endpoint Security, Pat Calhoun, SVP and General Manager Network Security. I’m looking forward to welcoming our C-Level customers there for a unique experience.

Anticipation and long term vision are critical in our industry. This view is also shared by our parent company Intel. In fact, Renée James, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Software and Services Group paid us the honour of joining us for a relaxed, open and candid interview with Mike DeCesare.  She told us how much she believes that Intel and McAfee have a unique opportunity and position in the market which enables them to serve their customers and make our world of the predicted 50 Billion interconnected devices, a safer place.

Cybercrime is crossing all boundaries; we witnessed it again with the recent attacks on several US media groups such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. McAfee has released its 2013 Threat Prediction Report setting the scene of new attacks. At the same time we noticed that older cyber threats which some people see as no longer valid are still very real and even mutating in the way they are used by the bad guys, Trojan Citadel being the perfect example, especially here in EMEA. Therefore I could not welcome more the latest commitment and resolve of the European Union to fight cyber threats. McAfee and Intel  work together in Securing the Global Digital Infrastructure (GDI).

In Las Vegas, I also had the pleasure of holding a specific breakout session with my EMEA Team.  We went through our 2012 results, looked at what we accomplished, what we could do better, and our top performing regions and Business Units. I launched our 2013 priorities and goals with our EMEA 2013 theme: PACT which stands for People, Activity, Commitment and Teamwork. Corporate Executives Steve Redman, Pat Calhoun, Ken Levine, and Candace Worley joined us for an interactive Q&A session.  I am really excited about our business. I must say that we have already had a good start to the year. We have the market, we have the momentum, we have the people and these three elements, combined with our EMEA PACT strategy, give us all the cards we need to make 2013 a fantastic year for our customers and partners.

McAfee held two Security Summits in London and Paris attracting over 750 customers and partners –  I want to thank them for joining us. I was part of the keynote panel for the summit with our co-president Mike DeCesare and Ross Allen VP UK&I. I also participated in a second panel talking about innovation. In Paris, Thierry Bedos, MD France interviewed me around market trends, the threat landscape and in both regions I met with C-Level customers to talk about their security strategy and how we can help them to increase their security posture while optimizing their costs.

McAfee’s Security Connectd Platform enables a smart and contextual security strategy. You can only protect what you can see – it is no longer about ticking boxes in order to be compliant. It is about having an integrated and smart platform which enables not only situational awareness but also takes real time action. This is unique and essential. Helping to demonstrate this, McAfee Labs released the latest McAfee Q3 Threat Report showing the global expansion of Cybercrime. We have seen notable jumps in some categories of malware, including ransomware and signed binaries. Rootkits and Mac malware continue to rise, while password-stealing Trojans and AutoRun malware also trend strongly upward. The largest growth is in mobile, especially Android malware.

To better support our customers in EMEA, we have opened the McAfee Technology Centre in Aylesbury. We had a great opening ceremony with the attendance of UK Officials. I also used the opportunity of the opening to launch Online Safety Kit for Kids. As a father of two young digital natives who are savvier in using the iPad than me, this encourages my commitment to this cause. It is part of our responsibility to help educate young people to navigate safely in the online world. Our latest study The Digital Divide shows an alarming 70% of teenagers are hiding their online behaviour from their parents. This number is up from 45% compared to 2010. And yet 50% of the parents are disconnected and live under the assumption that their teen tells them ever thing about what they do online.

In addition to the Aylesbury launch we held our worldwide All Hands meeting in unison with our Santa Clara Headquarters. We continue to engage with our partners and customers through our tailored newsletters – Partner Talk for our partners and SAFE for our enterprise customers. Last week I also had the pleasure to share a nice Christmas lunch in London with our EMEA analyst community.

We also celebrated two new members to our Million Dollar Club – a big welcome to them both. As we look to the end of the quarter the management team is fully committed to supporting teams in EMEA to close Q4 and Y’12. Last but not least, I was pleased to see  EU Officials getting the Nobel Prize awarded at the EU in Oslo. Congratulations to the EU!

On the second day, we had another star – President George W. Bush! He certainly knows what Cyber-defense and Cyber-Security means.  What a great panel!

Among the important trends and topics discussed, Mike DeCesare mentioned social media as one of the key drivers influencing the evolution of the threat security landscape. In fact, it is quite easy to do some social engineering –gathering information from social profiles and sending individuals targeted malicious links. As other key inflection points of the industry, Mike DeCesare spoke about computing, big data, mobility and the exponential growth of mobile applications. Information has become the new currency – bad guys target the information not the device. Mike Fey, our CTO, joined Mike DeCesare on stage. He became more specific about the different types of attacks. Quite scarily Mike explained that some new malware could not only steal information but also destroy all the files from the infected machine. He mentioned the Shamoon attack which hit Energy firms in the Gulf this summer. This type of attack could announce a new generation of attacks disabling systems at the kernel level. Moreover, as malware writers become more comfortable developing kernel-level attacks, the method could be used to facilitate any number of fraudulent activities.

In response, McAfee believes that security tools will need to move down to the kernel level as well, building security protections directly into the hardware itself. In fact since we joined the Intel Family, hardware integration has been a top priority for us. I am impressed by the number R&D we have working on hardware security; it equals the number of people security companies have to work on their entire products. Given the dramatic change of the threat landscape and the discussions I regularly hold with our customers, I see it as critical to have adequate resources to innovate in terms of product development and threat management. Intel reinforces our strength and gives us the firepower to fight the bad guys.

We also had some important announcements:

1. In the End Point Arena, as part the Security Connected Approach, we provide innovative context-aware security to defend against known and unknown advanced threats
2. We announced an interesting move in the embedded space with our partnership with Xerox to secure their printers from malware. I am sure a lot of us never thought that their printers might the weak links of their security posture!
3. And finally, we closed the industry security gap with intelligent and integrated Real-Time Asset Discovery. Today 20 to 50 per cent of devices residing on networks remain unknown to the manager. You can only protect what you see.

As partners are key to us, we hold our own  EMEA Partner Summit as part of the global Focus12 Partner Summit. We had about 120 of our key EMEA partners who joined us in Las Vegas. In addition to the global overview of what we see happening in EMEA and the status of the security market, we went through all of the exciting new things we have put in place for our partners in the last couple of months. The most important change was the launch of our Profitability Stack during the summer. This program is absolutely unique and brings a lot of value to our partners. I already got some fantastic feedback from both our customers and partners who attended the event. This Focus edition was really exceptional!

Russia represents one of our fastest growing markets; we are hiring new people; there will be a lot of exciting things happening in the future there. From a business energy perspective Russia is comparable to the Middle East.

Regarding the Middle East, there is quite a lot going on there. I was invited with our Professional Services team by Saudi Aramco to a C-Level executive Information Technology (IT) Cyber Security, and Protection Response workshop. It was opened by Saudi Aramco’s CEO and attended by Saudi Arabian government officials and CIOs/CSOs of over 60 of Saudi’s largest corporations. The objective was to share their crisis management and response strategy to counter cyber threats further to the cyber-attacks they encountered during the summer. McAfee was invited as the trusted advisor, and one of our Professional Services executive presented our vision and strategy for how we intend to help our customers both understand the threat landscape as well as proactively protect themselves in the current climate.

This tells us how serious cybercrime has become and how fast it is moving from malicious malware to cyber warfare. In some cases we are seeing time bombs dropped into organisations. More and more part of the danger comes also from inside the organisation. The whole preparation of attacks has a much longer horizon but once they strike, they become very disruptive. As the nature and the impact of attacks are changing, our aim is to help our customers to mitigate and minimize the outcome. In fact, it’s all about customer intimacy, their strategy, their critical processes, and how they are organized.

Our EMEA EBC proved again its tremendous value. We welcomed some significant customers, among them two important financial institutions and one large system integrator. We are the trusted advisor to our customers and in return, they feel they can share with us their strategy, objectives and pain points. Our customers are not only relying on us, it’s more than that, and they trust us to help them. Given the recent threat landscape, the question any critical business should ask itself is not “will we be attacked?” but “when will we be attacked” because it will happen, it’s just a matter of time. The challenge is to be prepared, have a plan, people informed and trained, and a playbook ready. And I can see that trend in the discussions I am having with our customers at the EBC. In the past we had to make people aware of the risks of cybercrime and cyber security, now we are helping them to prepare for an attack, put in place the right command and control structure, ensure business continuity and recovery. With this logic, System Integrators focus more and more on monitoring the environment to help their customers to build a Security Operation Center (SOC). I am pleased to see how good positioned we are at McAfee with our Security Connected solutions and Security Innovation alliance (SIA) counting more and more partners.

As part of the exciting things to come, I am getting prepared for FOCUS12, the McAfee annual security conference with “The bad guys are smart, get smarter at FOCUS” as global theme.

More to come soon!