Putting some teeth into software security
October 1, 2010 —
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If you ask security guru Bruce Schneier, the IT security industry was born by accident, ignored all its life, and is now dying. That’s a fair summary, anyway, based on the link he sent to a late 2007 op-ed he wrote for IEEE Security & Privacy, “The Death of the Security Industry.”
Declining to be interviewed due to his travel schedule, Schneier did point to his prediction that security would be mainstreamed into IT vendor portfolios. “IT security is critical, but there’s no earthly reason why users need to know what an intrusion-detection system with stateful protocol analysis is, or why it’s helpful in spotting SQL injection attacks. As IT fades into the background and becomes just another utility, users will simply expect it to work. The details of how it works won’t matter,” he said.
On the frozen tundra of recessionary IT spending, the only green to be seen last year came from the security market, which both grew revenues and became ripe for acquisitions.
Among the mature tools with inviting price tags: Watchfire and Ounce Labs, makers of a Web application security analysis tool and a static analysis tool, respectively, were bought by IBM in 2007 and 2009. SPI Dynamics (Web app analysis), Fortify (static analysis) and the just-announced ArcSight (monitoring) are all Hewlett-Packard purchases.
McAfee’s portfolio, ranging from antivirus to mobile device protection, was just snapped up by Intel, which cited security as the third pillar (along with energy efficiency and connectivity) in today’s computing experience.
“Vendors are trying to take security more mainstream—that is, bake it into most things they do,” said Michael Coté, an industry analyst with RedMonk. “There's always the tension of Microsoft finally doing rock-solid virus scanning for free in Windows, instead of letting the market for Intel/McAfee, Symantec, CA Technologies and others exist. But they seem to be avoiding that.”
Sized at a Gartner-projected US$4.2 billion, the consumer market for security technology dwarfs the market for developer-focused security tools, though the unveiling of a secure operating system for the world’s PCs would certainly mean death for Norton AntiVirus and sub-zero temperatures in Hades. But Redmond’s efforts over the past few years to assuage fears about identity theft and e-commerce scams did prime the pump for other security market niches.
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