Despite all the cyber-breach news, advisories, advertisements and warnings, many connected devices and computers are still not protected. Those devices and systems that are protected rely heavily on firewalls and antivirus as primary cyber defenses.
Few security product vendors would deny how difficult it has become to keep up with the constant development of new cyber threats. A recent Twitter post caught my attention and I reached out cyber security vendors, to ask for comments about the current state and challenge of cyber security.
For me the most telling comment was from German cyber security company AV-TEST. Andreas Marx, the company's CEO told me, "The good point is that AV products are still offering a good protection against known malware. However, it's getting harder for the AV vendors every day to keep up with the malware writers."
Another interesting observation is that we have entered a period of high reuse. AV-TEST's CEO said, "Many of the new (malware) samples are just variants of existing viruses. They have been modified so that they are no longer detected and thus, AV signature updates are required."
The growth of malware.
Photo Credit: AV TEST
Estimates project that by 2020 there will be 50 billion devices around the globe connected to the Internet. All of those are sure to be potential targets of malware. Knowledgeable sources believe that most of these devices will not have firewalls or anti-virus protection. New and unimaginable threats will without question be developed and thrown at these connected devices.
Just imagine what the total number of strains of malware will be then! Imagine what 2020's version of the chart above will look like. Now put that in context with Andreas Marx's comments. It will be nearly impossible to create anti-virus software that detects all those new strains of malware, as well as the strains that have been around for a few years and modified. If we did have all those signatures to scan against just imagine how slow the devices/systems would operate. This just adds to the growing number of reasons cyber security must be built into every device that connects to the Internet. Cyber security as an afterthought is a principle for the past! We must build security in now before it is too late.
