Increases in the sales of PCs, laptops, and especially smartphones are spurring growth in the security market. A report from Symantec Corp. shows that while the number of vulnerabilities decreased by 20% last year compared to 2010, the number of malicious attacks continued to skyrocket by 81%.
This in part explains an increase of 7.5% in 2011 from 2010 in worldwide security software revenue, which, according to a recent Gartner’s survey, totaled $17.7 billion. Small or midsize business (SMB) demand, advanced persistent threats, and compliance are among the main drivers boosting demand for consumer and enterprise security tools.
Indeed, advanced targeted attacks are spreading to organizations of all sizes. Data breaches are increasing, too. Attackers are focusing on mobile technology.
“Growth in the 2011 security market reflects a continuation in demand for consumer and enterprise security tools,” said Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner, in a statement.
“In the future, we will see much more cyber military, sabotage, and terrorism attacks,” Eugene Kaspersky said in Brazil. (Related story: Breaking down sources of cyber crimes). “The big problem is that IT systems around the globe are very similar; they are all standardized.”
A separate Gartner survey found worldwide unified threat management (UTM) revenue reached $1.2 billion in 2011, which is a 19.6% increase from 2010 revenue of $972 million. Company analysts noted “the UTM market is in the midst of a transition of its customers from older technologies to the latest next-generation firewall technology supporting application control capabilities.”
UTM vendors have delivered new products during the last several years with some vendors performing product refresh efforts to their UTM portfolios while others worked to expand their small or midsize business (SMB) offerings and wireless UTM offerings.
Mobile vulnerabilities rise
Symantec, which leads in both consumer and enterprise markets, followed by McAfee, Trend Micro, IBM and EMC, said it blocked more than 5.5 billion malware attacks in 2011, an 81% increase over 2010. Web-based attacks increased by 36% with more than 4,500 new attacks each day, while 403 million new variants of malware were created in 2011, which is a 41% increase over 2010.
“In 2011, cyber criminals greatly expanded their reach, with nearly 20% of targeted attacks now directed at companies with fewer than 250 employees,” said in statement Stephen Trilling, Symantec’s chief technology officer. “We’ve also seen a large increase in attacks on mobile devices, making these devices a viable platform for attackers to leverage in targeting sensitive data. Organizations of all sizes need to be vigilant about protecting their information.”
Mobile vulnerabilities continued to raise, with 315 discovered in 2011, which is an increase of 93%. Symantec points to a rise in threats targeting the Android operating system and noted malware authors are not only reinventing existing malware for mobile devices, but creating mobile-specific malware geared to the unique mobile opportunities.
In 2011, for the first time, mobile malware presented a tangible threat to businesses and consumers. These threats are designed for activities including data collection, the sending of content, and user tracking.
>>> Follow RCR Wireless News – Americas on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to our free periodic newsletters
