DON'T BELIEVE THE IT HYPE

Jul 1, 2005 12:00 PM

Companies have been hesitant to implement selected new technologies because IT security risks associated with these technologies have been greatly exaggerated, information security research group Gartner Inc. says. The firm identified five of the most over-hyped security threats during the three-day Gartner IT Security Summit:

• Internet Protocol (IP) telephony is unsafe. The reality is that security attacks are rare for IP telephony. Eavesdropping is the most over-hyped threat. Eavesdropping is unlikely to happen because the attackers must be inside the company with access to the same LAN as the IP telephone.

• Mobile malware will cause widespread damage. In most cases, mobile malware will be a niche nuisance in the foreseeable future. Penetration of smartphone and personal digital assistants (PDAs) with always-on wireless to knowledge workers or consumers was about 3 percent in 2005. Gartner projects it to reach approximately 10 percent by the end of 2005.

• Warhol Worms will make the Internet unreliable for business traffic and virtual private networks (VPNs). A “Warhol Worm” is a worm that infects all vulnerable machines on the Internet within 15 minutes. The “SQL Slammer” worm had a strong impact on the Internet in 2003, but this is the only observed example.

• Regulatory compliance equals security. Regulations often provide a means to obtain funding for important security initiatives before incidents occur, but most regulations lead to increased reporting rather than increased levels of security.

• Wireless hot spots are unsafe. Uneducated consumers can fall prey to wireless hackers, but enterprises can equip and educate their mobile workers with the tools and knowledge to mitigate these threats and increase business productivity via hot spot usage. Mobile users should seek out 802.1X protected access points because these points facilitate encryption between the mobile endpoint and the access point.

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© 2012 Penton Media Inc.

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