Internet security tipping point is just around the corner- says Tej Kohli
Tej Kohli business blog raise concern on the threatening security risks, likely to drill the internet. Tej Kohli found this interesting report posted online on the internet security fragility.
Internet security is a big question that is likely to raise eyebrows in the near future. According to a recent report by security company Symantec, the tipping point in internet security is closer than we think. The report highlighted some alarming facts.
By the end of 2007, the number of unique identified threats stood at 1,122,311. Of this disturbing total, 711,912 of the threats were identified in 2007, representing a 468 per cent increase on the previous year.
Such distressing numbers are enough to startle any company CIO or IT manager, who holds charge of ensuring security of systems, vital to the day-to-day running of their organization.
In actual fact, the number of malicious code threats is rising so quickly that Symantec’s experts believe the world may be rapidly heading for a security “tipping point”. This point will be reached when the number of legitimate programs in the world is outnumbered by the malicious or illegitimate ones.
When this happens, the traditional method of blacklisting known malicious code loses some of its effectiveness and appeal. The effort and expense of maintain a list of known bad code continues to increase to the point where it becomes a significant burden on both security companies and their customers.
Instead, a white listing system will have to be implemented. This list will be a comprehensive summary of all legitimate programs that should be allowed to exist on a corporate network. If a particular batch of code doesn’t appear on this list, it must be deemed malicious.
To back its prediction, Symantec pointed to research conducted for the report that looked at the adoption of new applications on Windows-based PCs. The researchers found that, of some 54,000 unique applications deployed on Microsoft Windows PCs, 65 per cent were malicious.
It’s a trend that is not going to slow anytime soon. For organisations to have any hope of maintaining security, a white list system may be the only choice. Any alternative is going to become too expensive and cumbersome to maintain.