Tuesday, 3 January 2012 10:49 24803 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fblog.q1labs.com%2F2012%2F01%2F03%2F2012-predictions-more-attacks-increased-security%2F2012+Predictions%3A+More+attacks%2C+increased+security2012-01-03+15%3A49%3A42John+Burnhamhttp%3A%2F%2Fblog.q1labs.com%2F%3Fp%3D2480

Posted by John Burnham in Cybersecurity, In the Industry, SIEM

This is the traditional time of year for Predictions of all sorts. One of my favorites was from the late, great George Carlin, AKA “The Hippy Dippy Weatherman“: “Today’s weather forecast is for gradual brightening in the morning, increasing throughout the day, with gradual darkening through the evening into late night, when the pattern repeats itself.”

In security, it could go something like: “The forecast is for continued escalation of targeted attacks by nation states, professionals, insiders and hacktivists. Occupy Data today announced…”

Here are a few excerpts from real forecasts.

ABC News: “Big companies and government agencies likely will have to rethink their approach to tech security in the wake of the disbanding of hacktivist group LulzSec, security analysts say. Spending on information technology security already is growing faster than spending on general technology. And corporate and government tech buyers will have to dole out even more to defend against profit-minded cyber thieves and spies looking to swipe state and corporate secrets. In fact, global spending on security products and services is expected to reach $71 billion by 2014, up from $55 billion today, according to Lawrence Pingree, research director for Gartner.”

And the professional prognosticators forecast increased investment in tools, solutions, services and systems as a result:

Canalys ended 2011 by announcing the results of its latest enterprise security forecast, indicating that total investment is expected to grow 8.7% year-on-year in 2012 to reach a market value of $22.9 billion worldwide.

Some thoughts from Gartner:

• Eighteen percent of respondents say they are not PCI-compliant, even though the data suggests they should be.

• Thirty-three percent of respondents are expecting their overall IT budgets to increase this year.

• Spending on personnel has decreased by 3% this year, which will result in higher expectations by organizations for better integration and automation from their technology purchases.

• In this year’s survey, IT security-specific budget allocations have climbed by 4% to a mean of 10.52% of the total IT budget.

We see all of this as evidence that technologies such as data loss prevention (DLP), device control, database activity monitoring (DAM), security information and event management (SIEM) and IT governance, risk and compliance management (GRCM) tools stand poised for strong growth as respondents have indicated they rank them as priorities.

The numbers might be various, but they are all big and getting bigger.

Share your predictions in the comments below.