The Approaching
Mobility Maelstrom
Last year Drew Amorosi polled the Infosecurity
editorial board on their predictions for 2011. This year he decided to broaden the sample and find out what the rest of the industry are talking about. What he received was an overdose of mobile security warnings
Every year here at Infosecurity we are inundated by lists of predictions from vendors, researchers, analysts, and other parties with a stake in the information and cybersecurity industries. So far, 2012 has been no different.
These predictions run the gamut from recycled soothsaying that could be applied to the year past, to bold new predictions that give reasons for concern. For your information, or in some cases entertainment, we have compiled an inventory of these forecasts for you to consider.
Rather than just regurgitating these lists wholesale, we thought a bit of retrospection was prudent by fi rst holding our own contributors accountable and looking back
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at what our editorial advisory board said in early 2011. As you will discover, they had us well- prepared for the year to come. After this trip down memory lane, we will then move forward and discuss some of the common trends we compiled from our predictions lists, in addition to discussing some of the most novel – dare we say provocative – trends we expect to see over the coming year.
Promises Fulfilled About a year ago our editorial board provided us their
collective wisdom by making some security predictions for the upcoming year. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the accumulated decades of experience these distinguished professionals posses, nearly all of them came to fruition in one way or another. Last year our editorial board sounded off about the M&A trend that heated up at the end of 2010, and which looked like it would continue straight through 2011 – and in fact it did. Most of our advisory board agreed this was a function of the security industry’s infancy, and that larger players would scoop up smaller ones with niche product offerings.
But some of our editorial board members – including Sarb Sembhi (Incoming Thought, ISACA), Marco Cremonini (Universita degh
Studi di Milano), and John Colley (ISC)2 –
expressed their concerns over what this movement might mean for innovation over the long term. Our board correctly predicted this trend would continue, and you can read more about these deals in the excellent article by Stephen Pritchard that appears in this issue (pg 32).
Consumerization within the enterprise – or bring your own device (BYOD) – was another topic that nearly all of our editorial board members cited as a blossoming trend throughout 2011 and beyond. Once again, these gentlemen were on point – so much so that this very issue of Infosecurity shines a spotlight on consumerization. Both Raj Samani (McAfee) and John Colley also correctly predicted that more large data breaches with varying degrees of sophistication would be in the news during 2011, although both would likely admit this was hardly a bold projection. Massive breaches at Sony, RSA, and marketing firm Epsilon were just a few of the most notable examples, in addition to well-publicized infiltrations such as Shady RAT. Talk of blended, sophisticated attacks were all the rage at the end of 2010, and the Stuxnet revelation that closed out the year provided an important example of how damaging advanced persistent threats (APTs) can be heading into 2011. Gerry O’Neill (Inforisca) advised that blended, increasingly sophisticated attacks would continue and
January/February 2012
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