Security Company Executives Discuss Threats and Their Management

As threat complexities grow, simplification in management of IT security systems becomes more important. This was the primary theme in the keynote address at Interop 2007 in Las Vegas on a Tuesday afternoon of May 22, 2007. During this event the CEOs of IBM Internet Security Systems and McAfee highlighted the challenges confronting organizations in safeguarding their networks and data from new threats, evolving speedily.

There would be more malware during the coming 18 months than there have been in the last 20 years. Researchers working in McAfee's Avert Labs predict that there would be 17,000 fresh phishing sites in each month, said DeWalt, CEO and president of McAfee. Information Week published DeWalt's statement on May 22, 2007.

DeWalt pointed out that in 2006, 37,413 new malware items attacked the Internet. He said the total cyber crime would cost $105 billion in 2007 alone. And according to the Federal Trade Commission estimates, there will be a loss of $58 billion per year due to data loss.

Criminals find big business from hacking, malware and spamming. Those who build botnets make significant money by hiring them out to spammers. The latter use the thousands of compromised or 'zombie' computers to spam out massive bulks of junk e-mails.

As cyber criminals enhance their weapons from simple viruses to designer malware, organizations need to take a step ahead of anti-virus systems that protect from known threats to security appliances that watch networks for harmful activity, said Thomas Noonan, general manager of IBM Internet Security Systems. Information Week published Noonan's statement on May 22, 2007.

In another statement Noonan said that most businesses had spent huge amounts of money for security systems and services in order to safeguard against threats. Despite that most of them continue to be vulnerable. Channel Web reported this on May 22, 2007.

In 2006, the X-Force security research team of IBM ISS detected and studied 200,000 pieces of malware that are set to increase in 2007, said Noonan. Signature-based solutions are just not working enough to react to variants that malware code writers constantly thrust on the Internet, he said.

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