Compromised PCs will continue to pose network security
problems, despite increased spending by businesses on anti-virus
software, according to analyst firm
Gartner.
The amount spent on anti-virus software is predicted to rise by
10.7% in 2007, said Nicole Latimer-Livingston, principal research
analyst at Gartner.
However, changing threats mean that there needs to be a
long-term shift away from relying on signature-based anti-virus
defences to more predictive and proactive security, she said.
Managing the problem of compromised computers will come to the fore
as part of this.
Dave Rand, chief technical officer of internet content security
at anti-virus supplier Trend Micro, said, "The number of compromised
computers sending spam has nearly tripled in the past year in the
UK.
"Workstations on the network could all be protected with
enterprise-class anti-virus software, but it only takes one PC to
eat up bandwidth after it becomes infected with a bot [a hidden
application that runs automated tasks over the internet]."
Attacks using bots are expected to rise in 2007, according to
research commissioned by network security provider Postini. More
than one million IP addresses are coordinating spam and virus
attacks in this way each day, it said.
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