Integrated Security Conference 2007 / Storge Solutions World 2007

Background Information

Gartner Sees Six Security Threats During Next Two Years

With reference to the news, “Gartner Forecasts Trouble With Rootkits, ID Theft” by Jeremy Kirk, IDG New Services, 18 September 2006, Network World, Gartner released the list of six threats during its recent IT Security Summit in London. The threats, Gartner said, have a "potential to inflict significant damage" on businesses. They are:

1)	Cyberattacks with a financial motive: Criminals may try to steal customer data or information to ruin the reputation of a company. Corporations should run more penetration tests to detect network holes and install more aggressive intrusion-detection systems, along with the usual signature-based antimalware software.

2)	Identity theft: Companies can seek to assemble enough personal information as to defend against these attacks. Companies can protect the themselves with stronger authentication methods, encryption, better access control and database monitoring.

3)	Spyware: Over the next two years, 20% to 50% of companies will become infected with spyware, Gartner said. Companies should look for antivirus and antispam functions in antispyware software.

4)	Social engineering: Cybercriminals can dupe users into revealing sensitive network information. Companies can compile clear and consistent security policies as to prevent users from making mistakes, for example, sending confidential information to a competitor.

5)	Viruses: Companies have to deploy security software that uses updated signatures, which detect new variations of malware, to stop infections. IT administrators also have to improve patching and vulnerability detection techniques.

6)	Rootkits: Gartner predicts increasing trouble from rootkits over the next five to 10 years. These modified system files are difficult to find because they bury themselves within an operating system. From there, rootkits could offer an attacker the same control as the computer's administrator.

Source: “Gartner Forecasts Trouble With Rootkits, ID Theft” by Jeremy Kirk, IDG New Services, 18 September 2006, Network World

Storage Software Market Grows, says IDC

According to the news by Network World 11/09/06, the worldwide market for storage software raised to $2.5 billion, up 8.6% from the year before, however, revenue from storage software decreased 3.2% at EMC and drop 1.8% at Symantec.

EMC with storage software sales of $654 million and a 26.4% share of the market, remained as market leader. Followed by Symantec, sales drop to $468 million and its share of the market slide to 18.9% from 20.9% a year earlier. Storage software sales at IBM grew 34.9% year on year, to $311 million, taking its share of the market to 12.5%, from 10.1% a year earlier. Network Appliance, in fourth place, grew even faster: Its revenue from storage software jumped 57.5% to $222 million, giving it 9% share of the market, up from 6.2%.

This is the 11th consecutive quarter of growth in storage software sales, IDC said. It attributed much of the growth to demand for storage replication systems, where sales grew 13.2% year on year, as companies make good on their disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Demand from archive and hierarchical storage management software (HSM) grew 32%, but from a much smaller base.

Source: Peter Sayer, IDG News Service, Network World 09/11/06