Q: Under your leadership, Extol has become very research and development (R&D) focused in its niche area of security. Please elaborate.
A: We believe Extol’s competitive edge lies in research activities that will benefit not just the company, but the security industry as well. Through these efforts, we have managed to come out with innovative, home-grown security solutions, some of which were showcased at the recent CeBIT exhibition in Hanover, Germany. These include the Extol Infrastructure & Information Security Enhancement Services, which emphasises on Threat Profiling. We also showcased a solution based on artificial intelligence technology, featuring face recognition and detection as well as signature verification. Extol’s X-Net Artificial Neural Network technology – a computing system that resembles the human brain in acquiring knowledge and addressing problem – also garnered positive response from patrons of CeBIT.
Q: What is the impact of network security threats on businesses?
A: If businesses continue to experience attacks despite having invested in security, business owners will soon lose trust toward security projects. To address this, Extol, along with other security players and government bodies, are working with international bodies such as ISO/IEC in defining security standards. Currently, we are at the stage of revising and approving standards written by foreign bodies. Hopefully, we will also see security standards originating from Malaysia. When we help define standards for the industry, it brings participation, debates and also expertise. Then we will have critical mass in terms of brain power in coming up with solutions to this problem.
Q: Players like Extol make it their business to address security threats in the enterprise work environment. What are the challenges here?
A: One of the challenges is the lack of standards in defining security threats. Right now, the industry has a free reign on labelling threats. For example, phishing is actually identity theft, but it is done online. In fact, there are many types of identity theft and many ways to do it. With anti-phising solutions, customers tend to think they are fully covered. This is misleading and can be dangerous in the long run.
Q: In the meantime, what security practices should users and businesses adopt?
A: Everyone should keep to the golden rules of security, which include downloading the latest patches and updates as well as be suspicious when receiving files and opening e-mail attachments. A lot of solutions today are not about buying new software and hardware, but about understanding the threats. Extol has spent a lot of effort in profiling threats. The challenge is profiling the threat before applying control, which is also a more effective approach.
Biodata
Tan became part of the Extol team in 1995 as a systems engineer and was subsequently appointed as its technical director in 1998, leading product commercialisation activities and overseeing technical innovation. In 2003, Tan assumed the role of chief executive officer and his key responsibilities include setting the direction of Extol MSC and formulating the strategies to achieve these goals. Tan, together with the management team, oversees the operations of the company and plans research and development activities and projects. He also oversees the planning of funds for projects and other aspects of Extol MSC’s expenditures. Tan graduated from University of London with a Bachelor of Science (Hon) Electronics and Computer Science.