Thursday 29 July 2010
Cloud computing and virtualization will be the top technology trends 2010 and priorities for CIOs tin 2010 as businesses shift from traditional on-premise software and hardware to hosted solutions, according to a report released Monday.
When asked to list their top technology priorities for 2010, CIOs ranked virtualization as their top area of focus, followed by cloud computing and web 2.0, Gartner found. Researchers predicted that companies will invest less in hardware in the coming year and more in hosted solutions as they continue to deal with recessionary budget constraints.
“They have aspired to this shift for years, but economic, strategic and technological changes have only recently made it feasible,” said Gartner group vice president and head Gartner Executive Programs researcher Michael McDonald.
The survey found that business process improvement topped a list of business concerns, followed by reducing IT costs. Cost-effectiveness will remain an overriding value in IT strategy as money remains tight, researchers predicted.
A number of firms have been able to save money in recent years by switching to cloud computing solutions and outsourcing the purchase and maintenance of hardware to a web-based service provider. These services leverage broadband internet connections that were not available to many firms until the past decade.
Using news headlines and the latest technological trends, cybercriminals are brilliantly agile at exploiting whatever is trendy for cash and profit. Now, the growing popularity of cloud computing and virtualization among companies is likely to catch the attention of criminals scheming for the next hot cyber-swindle.
According to the Trend Micro 2010 Future Threat Report, cloud computing and virtualization — while offering significant benefits and cost-savings — move servers outside the traditional security perimeter and expand the playing field for cybercriminals. The industry already witnessed Danger/Sidekick’s cloud-based server failure that caused major data outages in November 2009, highlighting cloud-computing risks that cybercriminals will likely abuse. Trend Micro believes cybercriminals will either be manipulating the connection to the cloud, or attacking the data center and cloud itself.
The Internet infrastructure is changing, opening more opportunities for cybercrime
The “next-generation” protocol designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force, Internet Protocol v. 6, is still in the experimentation stages of replacing the current IPv4, now 20 years old. As users start to explore IPv6, so will cybercriminals, and we can expect to see proof-of-concept elements in IPv6 start to materialize in the upcoming new year. Possible avenues for abuse include new covert channels or C&C. But don’t expect active targeting of IPv6 address space–at least not in the very immediate future.
Domain names are becoming more internationalized and the introduction of regional top-level domains (Russian, Chinese, and Arabic characters) will create new opportunities to launch age-old attacks through look-alike domains for phishing - using Cyrillic characters in place of similar looking Latin characters. Trend Micro predicts this will lead to reputation problems and abuse that will challenge security companies.
Social media and social networks will be used by cybercriminals to enter the users’ “circle of trust”
Social engineering will continue to play a big role in the propagation of threats. But given the increasing saturation of social media with content intended to be shared via online social interactions, cybercriminals will definitely try to penetrate and compromise popular communities more than ever in 2010.
Social networks are also ripe venues for stealing personally identifiable information (PII). The quality and quantity of data posted openly by most trusting users on their profile pages, combined with interaction clues, are more than enough for cybercriminals to stage identity thefts and targeted social engineering attacks. The situation will worsen in 2010, with high-profile personalities suffering from online impersonators or stolen bank accounts.
The extinction of global outbreaks, and the growth of localized, targeted attacks
The threat landscape has shifted and we are no longer seeing global outbreaks like Slammer or CodeRed. Even the much covered Conficker incident of 2008 and early 2009 was not a global outbreak by its true definition; rather it was a carefully orchestrated and architected attack. Moving forward, localized and targeted attacks are expected to grow in their number and sophistication.
More key forecasts for 2010 and beyond:
* It’s all about money, so cybercrime will not go away.
* Windows 7 will have an impact since it is less secure than Vista in the default configuration.
* Risk mitigation is not as viable an option anymore-even with alternative Browsers /alternative operating systems.
* Malware is changing its shape - every few hours.
* Drive-by infections are the norm - one Web visit is enough to get infected.
* New attack vectors will arise for virtualized/cloud environments.
* Bots can’t be stopped anymore, and will be around forever.
* Company/Social networks will continue to be shaken by data breaches.
For the full threat report, please visit: http://us.trendmicro.com/us/trendwatch/research-and-analysis/threat-reports/index.html
About Trend Micro:
Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in Internet content security, focuses on securing the exchange of digital information for businesses and consumers. A pioneer and industry vanguard, Trend Micro is advancing integrated threat management technology to protect operational continuity, personal information, and property from malware, spam, data leaks and the newest Web threats. Visit TrendWatch at www.trendmicro.com/go/trendwatch to learn more about the latest threats. Trend Micro’s flexible solutions, available in multiple form factors, are supported 24/7 by threat intelligence experts around the globe. Many of these solutions are powered by the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, a next generation cloud-client content security infrastructure designed to protect customers from Web threats. A transnational company, with headquarters in Tokyo, Trend Micro’s trusted security solutions are sold through its business partners worldwide. Please visit www.trendmicro.com.
Appistry's
Appistry, a pioneer in private cloud computing for the enterprise, today announced that Sam Charrington, Vice President of Product Management and Marketing, will be a panelist on the keynote roundtable at IDG’s CloudWorld conference, to be held Aug. 12-13 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The keynote roundtable, “Assessing the Real Market Opportunities and Obstacles for Making Cloud Computing Mainstream,” takes place from 4-4:30 pm on Wed., Aug. 12.
On the panel with Mr. Charrington will be James Urquhart, Market Manager, Cloud Computing and Virtualization, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Joe Weinman, Strategy and Business Development, AT&T Business Solutions; and Timothy Chou, Chairman, Ming Holdings. The panel will be moderated by Jeff Kaplan, Managing Director, THINKstrategies and CloudWorld Conference Chair.
The roundtable panelists will discuss and debate the steps the industry must take to make the promise of cloud computing a reality. They will address the state of the cloud computing market today; its most exciting / daunting aspects; events / advancements needed to take it mainstream; potential impediments to growth and expansion; and ways that players will be addressing these issues to ensure cloud computing’s success.
The CloudWorld™ conference is co-located with OpenSource World™ (the renamed LinuxWorld) and Next Generation Data Center™, offering an end-to-end view of enterprise technology within the data center. CloudWorld seeks to bring together the buyers and sellers of Web-centric software, infrastructure and services and is designed to drive acceptance and deployment of cloud computing in the data center.
About Appistry
Appistry simplifies cloud computing for the enterprise, opening the door to a more agile and scalable IT environment. Appistry’s CloudIQ application platform addresses the complex challenges of delivering and managing a wide variety of applications and services for both public and private clouds. The company’s platform is designed specifically for cloud environments, delivering transparent scalability, application portability, and automated management to new and existing applications. Appistry customers include FedEx, GeoEye, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. For more information about Appistry, please visit www.appistry.com.
Appistry, CloudIQ, and the Appistry logo are trademarks of Appistry, Inc. All other registered and unregistered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners.
Contacts:
Mike Maney
Zero to Five
(215) 589-5443
Sam Charrington
Appistry
314-336-2846
