Compliance Trumps Malware!

Here is an interesting one. Literally for years, malware infections were the Top #1 reason for buying all sorts of security solutions (not just anti-virus!) Is it really about to change? That would have a major impact on security market and technologies.

InformationWeek IT Security Spending Compliance, Not Malware, Drives IT Budgets: Survey April 6, 2006: "Regulatory compliance and protecting intellectual property (IP) are among the top reasons driving demand for security products – not phishing, worms, spyware and hack attacks,
according to a recent report. "

So, the old one of

#1 Malware
#2 Malware :-)

is replaced by

#1 Compliance
#2 IP protection

Great news!


The paper quotes a bunch of other fun factoids, such as this one: "Respondents expect to increase spending for endpoint security [in line with my 2006 predictions] an average of 32 percent during the next 12 months, with Symantec products garnering the strongest preference in this category. Strong authentication followed with an average expected spending increase of 27 percent, with RSA Security in the lead. "

Authentication growth is an interesting one as well. Is it the IAM/IDM crawling thru the backdoor of strong authentication? Sure looks like it...