Last week, the Juniper Networks Mobile Threat Center released its 2011 Mobile Threats Report, which shows evidence of accelerating threats targeting mobile devices. Findings include a 155 percent increase in mobile malware across all platforms, as compared to the previous year. Attackers are looking for the largest return on investment and thus targeting the most popular platform: in the last seven months of 2011 alone, malware aimed at the Android platform rose 3,325 percent.

Today, mobile devices are being used in many of the same ways as a personal computer. They have become the vehicle for day-to-day corporate and personal tasks – from email and Facebook to banking and critical business and government applications. As such, mobile devices require the same protections as a PC.

Is you Data Center running at optimum speed? Juniper has submitted the full QFabric System to a detalied audit via the instustry consortium Securities Technologies Analysis Center (STAC) and shown remarkable results.

Today, web applications are among the largest unprotected attack surfaces, and the frequency of attack is increasing. The primary security threat for businesses has shifted from the network layer to the application layer. Malevolent attackers can easily use automated tools to identify and exploit vulnerabilities in websites with tremendous reach and scale.  When they are successful, these web attacks are very costly to the target.

When financial markets move in microseconds, businesses need to know that their Balance Sheet reflects an accurate picture of the company health. Batch report that roll up over days mean executives are looking at history rather than reality - a New Network can ensure that the balance sheet reflects the now.

Even though I am a networking industry insider, I have a deep sense of wonder about how we are all connected.  It is quite profound that we are able to communicate, create, and conduct commerce in such a networked fashion. 

On Monday morning we had another reminder of our dependence on that connectivity when a small percentage of our customers experienced a brief Internet outage.   Within minutes of the incident we began to receive calls from key network providers about a brief but serious outage in Internet infrastructure.  A highly unusual sequence and timing of complex routing instructions communicated through Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) had triggered a software bug in one type of line card.   As a result several network service providers experienced brief instability.

Failover systems prevented broader impact and only certain earlier versions of software on certain routers experienced impact.  In fact, in most cases the problem was localized to the specific line card.  However, because networks are so interdependent, the corrupted route instructions impacted several networks simultaneously.  The problem and its recovery demonstrate the beauty and the challenge of being so connected with each other.

As November begins the holiday flurry—which now includes the highest uptick in online shopping for the year—let’s take a moment to reflect on October, National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM).  While I applaud the efforts of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to promote the occasion, I’m afraid the effort has fallen terribly short. What real improvements have been made to our national ability to be safer in cyberspace?  How many home users, small businesses, or students are better prepared to navigate the dangers of online predators, hackers, and criminals?

Almost two and a half years ago the White House released the results of the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review along with a set of 10 “near term” action items.  Number six on that list stated, “Initiate a national public awareness and education campaign to promote cybersecurity.”  Other than each October’s NCSAM exercise, it’s hard to find evidence of a nationwide, sustained effort to build the awareness and education we need to raise the bar in our fight against ongoing cyber attacks.

To affect real change, our government agencies and industry partners must align for collaborative cybersecurity detection, prevention, mitigation and response. With the proliferation of cyber attacks, identity and intellectual property theft now representing a true cyber epidemic, such an effort is long overdue.

The 18 critical infrastructure sectors identified by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have been a driving force in preventing terrorism and preparing strategies that would limit the impact should a terrorist attack occur. As the 10^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks nears, these sectors have a unique opportunity to enhance public awareness and vigilance.

In my role as chairman of the Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security, I’ve been working hard to leverage the partnership framework to improve collaboration between the private sector and public sector. To this end, I am strongly encouraging the critical infrastructure sectors to further extend their influence by joining with DHS to spread the word about the national "If You See Something, Say Something™" public awareness campaign.



Building on the momentum of our recent announcements including QFabric™: the Foundation of Data Centers for the Next Decade, Juniper Networks vGW Virtual Gateway and MobileNext: the industry's first open mobile core, Juniper Networks further demonstrates its industry-leading technology and engineering by today introducing the industry’s first Converged Supercore for service and content providers. Juniper’s Converged Supercore is an integrated end-to-end packet transport solution optimized to deliver the switching and transport technology necessary to simplify the core networking needs of service providers and ensure they are ready for the new connected economy.

What makes Juniper’s Converged Supercore so unique? Juniper’s new architecture blends best-in-class optical transport with industry-leading packet switching, making the best use of both technologies. Powered by the Junos operating system, this marks the first time that a single OS manages both the optical and packet layers.

The engine of the new Converged Supercore is Juniper Networks PTX Series Packet Transport Switch, another industry-first. The PTX Series switch consolidates optical transport with the efficiency and scalability of packet switching, and has been purpose-built to take the uncertainty and cost out of core network provisioning, resulting in network CAPEX cost savings of up to 65 percent compared to traditional architectures designed for similar traffic conditions.

Before we get ready to head into the New Year, l want to take a moment to reflect on what a busy and exciting year 2010 was for Juniper, our Infrastructure Products Group (IPG), and for our customers around the world.

We kicked the year off by announcing our strategic partnership with Polycom in January, which combined our high-performance network expertise with Polycom’s online video capabilities. Then in February, we made a number of significant announcements at Mobile World Congress highlighting our Project Falcon, an innovative framework designed to transform the experience and economics of mobility services with a seamless transition from 3G to 4G, and new industry benchmarks for mobile security. We also announced a number of key mobility partnerships and alliances, including with IBM and Nokia Siemens Networks. An important win and validation point for Juniper came in July when AT&T selected Juniper Networks as a Domain Supplier for the IP/MPLS/Ethernet/Evolved Packet Core domain.