Threats to follow 2011 tech trends

As technologies become smarter and faster, the threats to these technological assets will follow suit, according to the Symantec security and storage predictions for 2011.

Based on what its security and storage experts are observing in the information protection landscape, the security company says today's organisations are overloaded with information as data grows exponentially.

Almost daily, Symantec says, a new technology is either availed or brought to market with the promise of making the cost of doing business lower, more convenient and timelier.

"Given today's stagnant and declining IT budgets, it's imperative that organisations achieve more value from their IT spending," said Gordon Love, regional director for Africa, Symantec.

"By understanding challenges, risks and threats, organisations can plan and implement strategic technology initiatives such as virtualisation, mobile security, encryption, backup and recovery, archiving and cloud computing to protect and manage their information more efficiently."

As an example, Symantec says, the exponential consumer adoption of smart mobile devices will increasingly result in these devices making their way into enterprises through the back door, blurring the lines between business and personal use, and driving new IT security models to market in 2011.

Analysts firm IDC estimate that by year's end, new mobile device shipments will have increased by 55%, and Gartner projects that in the same timeframe, 1.2 billion people will be using mobile phones capable of rich Web connectivity, notes Symantec.

“Although cyber criminals have shown little interest in mobile devices in the past, as devices grow more sophisticated and as a handful of mobile platforms corner the market, it is inevitable that attackers will target mobile devices in 2011 and that mobile devices will continue to grow as a source of confidential data loss,” Symantec points out.

It adds that a similar challenge exists with the widespread adoption of virtualisation, noting that although many companies believe the information and applications within their virtual infrastructure are protected, many IT administrators will face the harsh reality that they are not in 2011.

It is also the company's prediction that the rapid adoption, fragmented implementation and lack of standardisation of virtual infrastructures will continue to expose gaps in the security, backup and high availability of virtual environments.

“Although virtualisation decreases server costs, organisations are realising that virtualisation is simultaneously increasing management and storage costs, and without a plan to protect these environments, they may not realise the full return on investment,” the company says.

The exponential level of data growth is impeding organisations' ability to effectively manage and recover data, it says.

“In 2011, storage administrators must regain control of information, lose their 'pack-rat' mentality and categorise what information is most important for retention purposes.

“Otherwise, storage costs will continue to skyrocket, and organisations will face extensive recovery times and be unable to comply with regulatory compliance standards, including privacy laws, and e-Discovery.”

Adding to the complexity, Symantec explains, is the use of social media to improve communication and productivity throughout an organisation.

It points out that although social media will continue to change the way we collaborate in 2011, IT organisations will also need to understand how to protect and manage these non-standard applications for recovery and discovery of business information that is communicated in these channels.

It also adds that social media archiving will grow in importance as companies unleash the power of social business but maintain archiving as a form of control to reduce information risk.

“Additionally, as data goes mobile and becomes less centralised, regulators will start cracking down in 2011, which will drive organisations to increasingly implement encryption technologies, particularly for mobile devices.”

According to Symantec, as organisations continue to manage with limited resources in 2011 while facing more intelligent and specific threats, IT will take a more strategic and innovative approach to solving problems.

While software will continue to drive innovation, it predicts that 2011 will bring new delivery models in response to customers' need to ease IT operations.

“Cloud computing, hosted services and appliances are examples of increasingly attractive delivery models that will change the landscape of today's data centre by providing organisations with flexibility and ease of deployment.

“Organisations will leverage public and private clouds as they become highly available in the coming year. Tools will also emerge to manage this new, complex storage environment and to help IT administrators better understand and capture information about unstructured data that within it,” notes Symantec.

This will allow IT to fully utilise the benefits of the cloud and intelligently report to management, it explains.

While customers opt to take advantage of cloud messaging services, Symantec also points out, they are still finding that they can drive greater cost out of the discovery process by keeping their archives in-house.

“This hybrid cloud archiving model allows organisations to use hosted messaging services while keeping their archives on-premise. This way they can combine email with other on-premise content sources like PSTs, IM and SharePoint that are relevant to the discovery process.”

Related story:
Virtualisation thwarts disaster recovery