Consolidation of the security market will remain the
norm, but best-of-breed security firms will continue to emerge to
address gaps in technology uncovered by sophisticated attackers
according to
a
new report issued by the Burton Group.
 | | | | | The bad guys are sticking arrows
into the customers and the customers are therefore driving their
vendors to cover up the parts of their body to which the arrows are
being stuck.
Bob Blakley,
principal analystThe Burton
Group |
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Large infrastructure vendors will continue to look to fill
security gaps in their portfolios by acquiring best-of-breed
security vendors, said Bob Blakley, principal analyst at the Burton
Group. The industry will never be fully consolidated, he said. But
smaller security firms will reemerge to meet new security threats
being driven by cybercriminals, he said.
"The bad guys are sticking arrows into the customers and the
customers are therefore driving their vendors to cover up the parts
of their body to which the arrows are being stuck," Blakley said in
an interview with SearchSecurity.com.
In his report,
"
The long tail of risk and the dynamics of the security market"
Blakley said the security market has a high degree of balance based
on risk. When a flaw is discovered by a security researcher or
exploited by an attacker that balance is disrupted. Platform
vendors then decide to buy or build new technology based on
customer pressure to quickly reduce costs associated with risk.
"
Risk exposure plays into the security market directly only when
the risks eventuate into losses," Blakley said in an interview with
SearchSecurity.com. "A risk itself isn't usually a cause of
management action unless there is an external forcing function like
regulation or customer or user dissatisfaction."
Blakley said point security products should be used tactically.
If the point security technology is acquired by a vendor that
competes with your existing technology it should be easily
replaced, he said. Point security vendors can also experience
growth and become a pure-play vendor, such as Symantec, which
continues to broaden its portfolio into system management and
storage and now competes with IBM's Tivoli product suite.
 |
| Podcast: Industry consolidation | Security360 -- Industry Consolidation Andy
Jones, a researcher with the UK-based Information Security
Forum, explains how to develop an effective security strategy to
deal with large projects and defend the budget. Paul Adamonis,
director of security solutions at Forsythe Solutions Group,
talks about how to navigate industry consolidation by developing
a buying strategy; and Sandra Kay Miller gives her observations
of the industry and explains why some companies may not fare
well in this era of consolidation. (Runtime: 25:01).
Download
mp3
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"The acquisitions in security do in fact track very closely to
the exposures that are really causing losses out there in the
world," Blakley said. "As soon as these exposures become business
problems a real risk tax comes into existence for customers."
Blakley's risk model can be seen in some recent security
acquisitions.
IBM is currently merging its acquisition of
Watchfire into its Rational development platform, which
provides tools for developers to model, design and build
Web-based architectures for SOA, systems and applications. Dave
Locke, director of offerings marketing for IBM Rational said the
acquisition adds software development security and compliance
testing tools for IBM customers but also gives Big Blue
additional security in its software development lifecycle.
Locke said the decision to buy Watchfire was driven in part by
customer pressure and the need to bolster Web application software
development security testing. The acquisition was finalized last
week.
"We got to point where customers were talking about needing more
support from IBM and we made a made a make versus buy decision," he
said.
So far Locke said no talent has been lost from Watchfire as a
result of the merger.
"All the key players are definitely part of the plan," Locke
said. "We're embracing them to stay with us and we want their
talent to stay here."
Meanwhile, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based
PatchLink said is in the process of merging
SecureWave technology with its own to create a platform to
secure enterprise servers and endpoints. Patchlink announced the
merger in June.
Matt Mosher, PatchLink's senior vice president of sales for the
Americas, admitted that combining SecureWave technology with
PatchLink would take time. For now, the plan is to combine the
software into a suite that could be purchased separately.
"We have a customer advisory board that we solicit customer
input and it gives them access to product management so they have a
voice in how we evolve this suite of products," Mosher said. "We're
being very careful. With best of breed, you don't get a vision in
mind and move blindly forward."