Advertisment

Security Landscape 2014: Emerging Solutions

author-image
Rahul
New Update

According to various Internet Security Threat Reports of 2013, there was a 42% rise in targeted attacks. Of these, 31% were aimed at businesses with less than 250 employees. One Waterhole attack for instance, infected 500 organizations in a single day and 32% of all mobile threats stole information. There was an increase in the number of phishing sites spoofing social networking sites by 125% with an overall increase of 30% in web-based attacks, but at the same time, the spam volume conatinued to decrease.

Advertisment

So there's consistency in attacks, but they keep changing their course from time to time, which ultimately forces security vendors to look for new solutions and techniques.

Here are some new & impactful ideas and solutions being worked on by security vendors for 2014:

Security Visibility - In the past few years, cyber attackers have successfully breached large organizations, despite firewalls and antivirus security defenses. Outdated legacy defenses, misconfigured security controls, and bulk security logs make it impossible for security professionals to protect their networks and recognize important security events. WatchGuard anticipates that in 2014, more organizations will deploy security visibility tools to help identify vulnerabilities and set stronger policies to protect crucial data.

Rise of biometric authentication in mobile devices - With so many passwords hacked this year even from LinkedIn & Adobe, it is imperative that people will start looking for some other alternative. This year, Apple made a bold move when it announced its new iPhone 5s would integrate fingerprint authentication into the device. Never mind that it was hacked a few days after the phone was shipped, but it got people talking about the importance of two-factor authentication in a world where single factor password login is becoming archaic. As a result of this renewed interest, Fortinet predicts that next year we'll see additional mobile companies including second factor of authentication into their devices. We'll also see an increase in additional forms of authentication, such as tattoos and pills, iris scanning and facial recognition.

Advertisment

The state of World Wide Web - According to Kaspersky labs, the Internet has begun to break up into national segments. Snowden's revelations have intensified the demand for rules prohibiting the use of foreign services. Individual countries are no longer willing to let a single byte of information out of their networks. These aspirations will grow stronger and legislative restrictions will inevitably transform into technical prohibitions. The next step will most likely be attempts to limit foreign access to data inside a country. As this trend develops further, it may lead to a point where the current Internet as we know it collapses, and breaks into dozens of national networks.

Increased spending on insider threat prevention - The insider threat is ever present and hangs over every company. The Edward Snowden incident continues to reverberate across industries. Hence there will be much greater emphasis on the personal aspect of insider threat prevention in 2014. Companies will spend more money and time on employee screening and monitoring, with a stronger focus on outsourced and contracted positions. A much greater emphasis on monitoring and controlling privileged users is also expected.

Network security vendors forced to become more transparent- This year, Fortinet predicts that we'll have a higher level of increased scrutiny and accountability at the network security vendor level. Customers are no longer going to accept the "proprietary security-hardened OS" marketing spin. They will demand proof, and when they are subject to undue risk, they will demand accountability. This will be in the form of greater transparency around supply chain management, patch management and Secure Development Lifecycle (SDL) practices. 

The findings in this have been assessed from the security threat reports sent to us by the following vendors:

Symantec, Kaspersky, Trend Micro, McAfee, Cyberark, Cyberoam, Websense, Fortinet, WatchGuard and ESET.

We'd like to thank these vendors for sharing their threat reports with us.

Advertisment