Predictive security market expanding as IT threats increase

01 February 2012

Posted by Samuel Couratin

A growing market for predictive security is emerging globally as "unknown, persistent, targeted, and adaptive security threats" continue to build and evolve.

This is the claim made in a new report, which highlights the increasing risk of high-profile attacks to infrastructure.

According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the market for predictive security intelligence tools will expand by more than four times the 2009 level of $198 million to reach $905 million in 2014.

The analyst suggested that organizations are struggling to keep pace with the evolution of security threats with advanced monitoring and management technologies becoming increasingly popular for protecting enterprise applications, data, endpoints and networks.

"It's becoming clear that many of these emerging treats cannot be defended against in-house, creating a shift in security posture toward being more proactive," declared ISC Senior Analyst, Christine Liebert.

However, IDC has found that the length of attacks of becoming shorter, while attackers have enlarged their scope in recent years to include small businesses.

Further research by security specialist McAfee and the Security & Defence Agenda (SDA) discovered recently that 57 per cent of respondents worldwide believe we are currently witnessing a cyber arms race as organizations rush to safeguard their systems.

The greatest threat posed by online attacks was seen by the experts questioned as damage to critical infrastructure, while 45 per cent stated that security in this area is as important as protecting borders and the nations found to be most secure were Israel, Sweden and Finland.

According to the SDA, more now needs to be done to share information globally in this field, create financial incentives to enhance security, provide law enforcement agencies with greater powers to combat cyber crime and raise public awareness about threats to data protection and continuity.

Phyllis Schneck, McAfee Vice-President and Chief Tecnology Officer for Global Public Sector, stated: "Until we can pool our data and equip our people and machines with intelligence, we are playing chess with only half the pieces."