CA Peers Into Security Crystal Ball

To wit, myriad security vendors have aired their projections for the coming year, with the consensus being that security concerns will continue to intensify, especially around profit-motivated attacks, such as phishing and spyware; that policy enforcement will be as important as technology to solve those problems; and that the security sector will continue to see more consolidation.

CA highlighted the latter point as one of its top 10 security predictions for 2006.

“Threat vendors will be acquired or ally with larger vendors, while other vendors will seek deeper integration and interoperability, and to bolster strong authentication,” the company recently stated. Along those lines, CA also predicts the integration of hardware-based security solutions with enterprise software will possibly trigger more acquisitions.

Among CA&'s other predictions for the coming year:

• Governments will play a broader role in defining security policy, exemplified by the U.S. Congress&' expecting to enact national-security breach legislation in 2006.

• Stronger authentication will require more balance between overall risk and inconvenience for organizations.

• Security defenses converge as security elements, such as threat and identity management, begin to “talk to one another.”

• Worms will continue, but will be eclipsed by rootkits and politically based “hacktivism.”

• Spyware businesses will seek legitimacy as they become more nimble, harder to pinpoint and more aggressive.

• Wireless and WiMax growth will increase the volume of threats to metropolitan-area networks, while posing new challenges for authenticating users.

• Spam levels will hold constant, but will be harder to defeat as spam engineering becomes more sophisticated.

Solution providers say the migration to hosted services and the expansion of centrally managed content systems are making it tougher to eliminate spam. “Spammers are beginning to give up on exploiting cable modems and are looking to infiltrate small Web hosts,” says Cameron Spitzer, proprietor of Truffula Networks, a security solution provider in San Jose, Calif. “And customers who want to use elaborate content-management systems are making it easier for spammers to find their way in.”