Companies will spend an estimated $50 billion on computer security this year, but they are not feeling particularly secure these days.
Blame innovation, if you like. Every big digital advance opens the door to both opportunity and mischief. Smartphones, cloud computing and the data explosion promise a revolution in communications, cost-savings and knowledge discovery. But those three trends in technology also create security headaches.
John Meakin, the global head of security for Deutsche Bank, speaks of the rising tempo and sophistication of security threats, and how applications delivered over the Internet and mobile devices take sensitive data beyond the traditional security stronghold - the “fortress firewall,†he calls it.
What is needed, according to Mr. Meakin, is a smart “always-on, listening widely†tool to detect emerging security threats - typically software bots intent on pilfering information and committing fraud.
I.B.M. is mov ing to provide the kind of digital security sentinel the Deutsche Bank security chief has in mind.
The company is making a bundle of product announcements on Thursday that address the security challenges of mobile, cloud and Big Data computing, and I.B.M. is applying its own data analysis expertise to attack the data-security problem.
The key, said Steven A. Mills, senior vice president in charge of I.B.M.'s software business, is technology that constantly monitors all kinds of data flowing into and out of a company and looks for unusual activity, or “threat patterns.â€
“Security today is a real-time Big Data challenge,†Mr. Mills said.
The I.B.M. offerings are mainly monitoring software for data flows to and from mobile devices, remote data centers and programs built with Hadoop, the underlying software for many Big Data applications.
The products are the result of years of I.B.M. investment and several recent acquisitions, notably Q1 La bs, a private company based in Waltham, Mass., that I.B.M. bought last year. With the Q1 deal, I.B.M. set up a separate security division, and Q1's chief executive, Brendan Hannigan, became general manager of the security business.
Equifax, a large credit reporting agency, started working with Q1 shortly before it was bought by I.B.M. With 572 million consumer records in its data centers, Equifax must stay at the leading edge of security technology, said Tony Spinelli, its chief security officer. He said security was a never-ending race to stay ahead of modern hackers, whom he called “artful and creative guys.â€
The appeal of I.B.M.'s strategy, Mr. Spinelli said, is that it focuses on “security intelligence.†The traditional approach to security, he explained, has focused on “detection and reaction.†But today, he added, the need is for automated tools that mine data flows to spot threats and issue alerts to security professionals.
I.B.M.'s moves reflect how the computer security business is evolving, said Jon Oltsik, an analyst for the Enterprise Strategy Group, a research firm. The industry, he said, has long been dominated by niche companies that focused on specific products, like virus software or firewalls. But the rising complexity of computing, and of security threats, is prompting a consolidation - and a need for products and services that span the spectrum of security threats companies face.
I.B.M., Mr. Oltsik said, is one of the few companies that has both the technology expertise and broad reach to be a winner. Other candidates, he said, include Hewlett-Packard, McAfee, Symantec and perhaps Cisco.
“This massive series of announcements shows that I.B.M. is executing on its security vision,†Mr. Oltsik said.
