THE SCRAMBLE FOR SECURITY (with apologies to Thomas Packenham)

 In 1880 Africa remained relatively untouched by Europeans.   Over the next two decades the Continent was carved up by the Colonial powers in their urgent quest for raw materials to feed the post-Industrial boom. 

The parallel scramble over the next 2 years (this is Internet time !) will be for security assets.   The large firms such as IBM, Intel and HP (read: the Colonialists) will start to acquire smaller security firms such as Sophos ( raw materials).  It has already started playing out this year with BAE announcing its acquisition of Norkom for E217m (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/marketforceslive/2011/jan/14/baesystems?CMP=twt_gu)

Among the growing threats facing many organizations this year is the advanced persistent threat, continual patterns of digital assaults aimed at government and business IT systems to steal intelligence and trade secrets, often backed by foreign governments or their supporters.  Or perhaps to put it another way Cyber War, (now de rigueur ) is upon us from all quarters.   And the big boys want to be in on the action. 

They know ( and now we all do ) that the threats are coming from:
-        social media ( now a mainstream form of communication and major vulnerability for users);
-       mobile devices which are becoming THE form factor for Internet access ( and not only in emerging markets );
-       Applications - which have massively simplified our consumption of Internet services;
-       “De-perimerization” –the line between work and home has blurred with users accessing their corporate networks remotely from their personal devices; 
-       the Internet of Things – will require ( billions of ) devices to communicate with each other and with networks leading to increasing vulnerabilities;   
-       Good old fashioned Cyber War – States are starting to comprehend the benefits of engaging with the enemy via the Net rather than ‘ face to face ‘
-       Hacktivism – crowdsourcing as a means of gaining political advantage (legitimate and sometimes not )  whether from Student fee protests to the recent Tunisian uprising or Wikileaks. 

The big players have the institutional capacity to service large corporate and Government clients but their sheer size mitigates against them being innovative and fast moving.   Why else would Intel pay over $7bn for MacAfee ?  It is “ innovation by acquisition“ and if you are lucky enough to be in this space then this promises to be a rewarding year for you!!
The ' Scramble for Security' has begun - lets watch how things pan out. ...

Happy hunting. 


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