Dell Technologies Infrastructure Security with Steve Kenniston

Having a secure and resilient infrastructure gives organizations the confidence they need to innovate. Dell helps organizations stay safe and secure, today and into the future, by manifesting a comprehensive security strategy across three core pillars: modern workspace (PCs), modern data center (storage, servers, data protection, networking, HCI), and AI. This holistic approach, known as the Dell Technology Advantage (DTA), integrates security and sustainability across all three components. A dedicated development organization within Dell focuses on creating consistent security capabilities across their entire portfolio, aiming to reduce tool sprawl and provide a unified management experience for customers, including consistent operating systems across appliance solutions for predictable security implementation.

Dell’s infrastructure security strategy aligns with a “reduce attack surface, detect and respond, and recover” framework. To reduce the attack surface, Dell’s servers incorporate features like system lockdown, signed firmware updates, and dynamic USB control, while networking solutions leverage cryptography and secure authentication. For detection and response, features like iDRAC on servers and BIOS live scanning are used to continuously monitor for changes and send notifications upon physical chassis penetration. In terms of recovery, Dell ensures valid recovery points, scans data before recovery, and offers capabilities like scanning snapshots on primary storage for early threat detection and quicker recovery of business-critical data, complementing their data protection solutions with immutable vaults and isolation.

Dell also emphasizes a zero-trust approach, building capabilities into each solution set to support customers in creating zero-trust environments. While they clarified that “certification” by the Department of Defense is better termed “validation,” Dell’s Project Zero architecture adheres to the DOD’s zero-trust guidelines, having undergone testing and validation against their COA3 for on-prem infrastructure. This validation process involved implementing hardware that the DOD could pen-test and validate against various security controls. Additionally, Dell has partnered with CrowdStrike to enhance threat detection within backup environments, identifying over 70 types of attacks and sending actionable intelligence to SIEMs, thus shifting from reactive incident response to proactive detection and providing comprehensive recovery services through their integrated support and engineering teams.