Security Tip: Three technologies to watch

I am often asked about the top key technologies to watch, and this week, I share three that will impact the way we work.



Number 1: Security information management and unified threat management products. Think of these tools like giant sponges. Their job is to absorb all of the security-related events around your enterprise and produce meaningful correlated reports. There are some interesting developments in this space that go beyond log management and aggregation, and while we still can't predict security events, the trending and mathematical modeling of some of these tools is amazing. Developments in incident management, attack simulation and security visualization and new capabilities of statistical analysis and expression are showing great promise toward making it easier to understand our threat postures. If you haven't looked at this space recently, check out some product demos.



Number 2: Buffer overflow protection shims. These are like little firewalls/IDS mechanisms for the memory and kernel of the systems they run on. In some cases, these little extra protective memory managers can completely eliminate the threat of buffer overflows - which remain the basis for a large amount of application threats. The technology is still developing, but there are several vendors with growing influence in this space. Make sure you focus on products that offer general protections of both the stack and the heap, and that you hone in on products that are not signature-based to reduce the management overhead required for effective use.



Number 3: Source code assessment tools. These emerging products can actually scan the source code of applications and find the security holes in them, before they reach production. These tools are becoming much stronger and easier to integrate into the quality control process. With attackers focusing on the application level, organizations must use application code assessment and/or application penetration testing in their quality control environment. With source code analysis, you can eliminate enough holes in the code to meet or exceed the 80/20 rule[1] before it leaves your testing. In most cases, these tools can make an almost bulletproof production environment. Watch for new developments this year in affordability, project management and required resources needed to use these tools.



These technologies represent a number of emerging protections and some interesting opportunities to make security easier to perform, more effective and more cost effective for high safety levels. Admittedly, they may need to mature a bit first before you integrate them into your existing programs, but their futures are bright.

[1] In this reference, the 80/20 refers to the idea that you can eliminate 80% of your risk by doing 20% of the work needed to eliminate 99% of the risk. Common wisdom is that the majority of attacks (some 80%) are through known issues and vulnerabilities that can usually be eliminated easily through application of basic security techniques.

MicroSolved, Inc.

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