Predictions for 2010

Tuesday, 05 January, 2010


I always like to look back to the previous year’s predictions and see how close they were to the mark. And I can report our crystal ball gazers for 2009 knew that the year would be challenging but the challenges would spurn smarter ways of doing things. So cloud computing, virtualisation, unified communications and smarter ways of conserving energy in data centres were the main issues for 2009. Security, as usual, is still a focus and it seems it always will be with the cyber criminals always being one step ahead of the security industry.

These issues will still be important for 2010 according to our pundits but we can add the National Broadband Network, the continuing explosion of data and what that means to storage, mobile broadband, 4G, desktop virtualisation and machine-to-machine technology.

Merri Mack, Editor

Chris Hancock, CEO of AARNet

2010 will be a milestone year for innovation in Australia’s academic and research sector as AARNet shifts into its new product roadmap from AARNet3 to even further levels of collaboration as it begins the planning for extending the network towards a 100 Gbps world.

We expect a surge in high-definition video collaboration as the adoption of OptIPortals will increase in universities with larger data pipes. OptIPortal technologies are crucial to the infrastructure as it will open up a world of opportunities for collaboration and put Australia at the forefront of global collaborative research. In addition, AARNet will continue to push the boundaries for immersive desktop video and the benefits of virtual world technology.

With the government’s continued investment in AARNet, Australia will move closer to the goal of being the destination for the Square Kilometre Array. AARNet will demonstrate how Australia is ahead of the curve with key demonstrations that will send waves through the global astronomy community.

SNIA

Cloud computing. Expect to see more service offerings, more players entering the market, greater security, mass adoption of both public and private clouds, and an increasing degree of confidence in the technology borne from developing standards.

Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). With the standard now ratified by the industry there will be a push towards a converged data centre network where Fibre Channel SANs meet the gigabit ethernet network.

Virtualisation. Virtualisation will enter its second wave of adoption, as an enabling technology for cloud, and as new vendors start to offer third-party tools which improve storage virtualisation and add depth to hypervisor vendors’ offerings.

SSD. Improvement of price/performance ratios will lead to an increase in market share for solid state storage. Expect to see SSDs begin to replace mechanical drives as a storage cache solution.

Deduplication. 2010 will be the year of data deduplication as the technology evolves and customers begin to see it as part of data management best practice.

Compliance legislation and litigation - archiving and data retention. Anticipate more focus on automation, policies and tiering as a means to combat increasing levels of fines forcing companies to comply with information management legislation.

Tiered storage and automation. The benefits of tiered storage will be realised as policy-based automation matures as an accepted method to migrate data.

Thin client computing. Less reliance on the PC and more on cloud-based SaaS applications.

Storage education and certification. With the increasing pace of storage technology development, customers will invest more in ensuring their teams are competent and will look to the industry to provide the necessary certifications.

Green storage. Next year will see the emergence of standard metrics for power consumption in storage arrays and more sophisticated tools to manage energy consumption in the data centre.

Ian Birks, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Information Industry Association

It’s difficult to use a crystal ball to do justice to a future as crowded with opportunity as that of the ICT industry. The NBN announcement, a range of digital public policy initiatives, the emergence of new technologies and our role in challenges now topping the national agenda mean an exciting year ahead.

Sustainable ICT has been developing its credentials for many years, and Australia is already seen as a leader in this field by our international peers. I believe the coming year will see a turning point: green IT initiatives will start to move from niche concern to mainstream strategy as businesses of all sizes seek more efficient energy practices and better environmental qualifications.

The ICT industry has a critical role to play in the NBN rollout, one that will begin in earnest in 2010. Creating an application-rich environment as the foundation of a genuine digital economy will be the basis of NBN ROI as well as a central pillar of Australia’s economy in the future. The ICT industry must begin deeper engagement with all business sectors over the coming year as part of that process.

Cloud computing is also moving forward with increasing momentum and will inevitably have longstanding impacts on Australian information industries, consumers and businesses. This trend towards cloud computing, or software-as-a-service, has accelerated even during the economic crisis and will begin to emerge as a serious market concern for the ICT industry and Australian business sector in 2010.

Jo Stewart-Rattray, Director of Information Security, RSM Bird Cameron

Australian businesses face invisible security threats during 2010 due to uncertainty created by fallout from the global financial crisis (GFC). During 2009, organisations took their eyes off the security ball, with security becoming a discretionary spend. Organisations put the brakes on their security spending and then they took them off again, which made for a very jerky ride.

This caused significant disruption in staff, strategy and operational security activities. As a result, there’s a lot of risk bubbling under the surface that people are not aware of. There’s widespread concern about a W-shaped economic downturn, so people are holding their collective breaths for a second wave of bad news. Uncertainty breeds insecurity. Although the worst of the GFC may have passed, people are still unsure of their job security, so they might hang on to a bit of information in case it comes in useful in the future. That presents a serious, albeit unrealised, threat to any organisation. There’s more reason for concern now as a lot of the risk has become invisible. People think ‘we know about that’, but all the vulnerabilities are still there. The problem is the bad guys did not back off due to the GFC.

 

Mike Ropiky, VP & Managing Director, Global Connectivity Solutions, ADC Krone, Asia Pacific

Fibre will empower the future of broadband and 2010 will see significant opportunities emerging in telecommunications as both Australia and New Zealand come closer to finalising their broadband implementation plans.

With no let-up in the constant demand for more and more bandwidth worldwide, the key driver of any broadband strategy will be the ability to deliver cost-effective solutions that will enable networks to plan for longevity and enhanced capacity. In this regard, fibre is the future - it is higher capacity with a reduced footprint over copper. And connectorised fibre is the best possible technology enabling carriers to align costs with revenue, saving time and money in the installation and deployment of economic-proof FTTP and FTTH networks that will have lifelines similar to copper.

The continued push for ‘green’ data centres will heighten into 2010 - as the drive to use less energy in the networks becomes not only a business imperative, but a matter of business survival. In the drive to save our planet, the passive network layer is often overlooked in the green discussion. However, IDC predicts that in the coming year every $1 spent on new servers will require 71 cents on power and cooling. Managing the data centre’s passive network will play an important role in reducing energy consumption.

Craig Scroggie, Vice President and Managing Director, Pacific Region, Symantec

The security threat landscape continues to evolve and throughout 2010 Symantec expects to see more attackers developing malware to exploit devices such as Macs and smartphones and social networking sites which are poised for another year of unprecedented growth. Symantec also expects the authors of rogue or fake security software to take their efforts to the next level. Rather than only enticing users to buy rebranded copies of free third-party antivirus software, cyber criminals may move to the next level and hijack users’ computers, rendering them useless and holding them for ransom. Symantec is also seeing a trend towards disguising shortened URLs as legitimate links to distribute misleading applications and we expect more of this activity in 2010.

Next year, enterprise IT administrators will also continue to struggle with the explosion of data volumes. Major storage trends will focus around deduplication and cloud storage, which will help enterprises reduce costs, improve storage efficiency and reduce management complexity. Both industry consolidation and increasing industry competition will drive the need for heterogeneous standardised management software in 2010 and more users will be able to benefit from virtualisation as competition increases among providers.

Finally, as users migrate to Windows 7 in 2010, attackers will undoubtedly find ways to exploit these users in 2010 and we have already seen this with the first security patches being released in November 2009. Organisations migrating to new Microsoft platforms will also evaluate their storage management and data management solutions to ensure these technologies efficiently support all Microsoft applications.

Steve Nola, CEO, Dimension Data Australia

The IT industry is going through a phase of disruption, with virtualisation, infrastructure as a service and green IT fronting the wave. But the key questions for CIOs remain the same: how do I plan, run and manage my infrastructure; how do I make it easier for users to access information and collaborate; and how do I keep it all secure? Here are the five key considerations that I believe will shape our answers to these issues in 2010:

  1. Architecture is king. This is the foundation of IT operations, and will be at the core of our discussions with clients.
  2. Making the right operational choices. Choosing the right operating strategy to manage infrastructure to improve cost efficiency and leverage the scale of clients’ operations.
  3. Collaboration. We are seeing key technologies in this space (IP telephony, workflow tools, social networking) continue to mature, and they can make organisations more agile - if they’re deployed intelligently.
  4. ‘Surfacing’ business information. Information is a critical resource, and providing the tools for access to meaningful and targeted data to your internal and external users is key to greater business productivity.
  5. Security is at the forefront. Security is a pervasive concern that connects with every type of IT initiative, and its importance and the focus businesses place on it did not wane through the financial downturn. In light of the recent financial crisis, we will see a greater emphasis on governance in 2010.

Jacqueline Hey, CEO, Ericsson Australia and New Zealand

The global financial crisis might have slowed down the telecom industry, but the pace of innovation is accelerating. Several key trends will continue to shape our lives in 2010. The market for mobile broadband is expanding at a rate that was previously unimaginable. By 2013, there will be 3.5 billion broadband subscriptions, of which 80% will be mobile. High-speed internet access has become widely available to users of mobile phones, laptops and netbooks, and we see a world of 50 billion connected devices by 2020.

Long Term Evolution (LTE), the next-generation mobile broadband network, will make significant progress in 2010. Major operators such as Verizon in the US will start deployment and be closely watched by Australian operators. Consumer behaviour is driving change and placing new challenges on operators. To cope with demands for fixed and mobile broadband, operators will need to accelerate their conversion to all-IP broadband networks. Critically, they’ll also need to add more backhaul and transmission. In Australia, we believe that the aggregate capacity of backhaul will need to grow a hundredfold.

Sustainability has been on the world political agenda for a while now, but there is growing awareness of the importance of ICT and the role it can play in fighting climate change, while at the same time improving productivity. I’d like to think that 2010 will be the year that the Australian telecom industry combines forces to help address the critical issues facing the planet.

Wataru Takeuchi, Managing Director, NEC Australia

The 2009 mantra of ‘more productivity with lower costs’ will continue into 2010, but we expect to see a renewed focus on communication and collaboration - particularly across disparate geographies and virtual teams.

In the last four years, the number of businesses with operations in every state across Australia has increased by a staggering 70% according to the ABS. Organisations that are geographically dispersed face issues of complexity and the increased need for collaboration and communication across the offices.

We expect to see companies utilising more immersive collaboration such as high-definition video, real-time application sharing and high-fidelity audio, reducing travel costs and allowing employees to get the answers they need immediately. Furthermore, tighter integration between applications and communications will become a focus, in order to reduce human latency in the communication process.

This collaboration and communications efficiency is also driving cloud computing. Hosted applications, voice and platforms make it easier to access data from anywhere and we expect Australia to embrace cloud computing in the next decade.

Particularly for SMEs, there will be a greater acceptance of cloud computing and an increase in the number of pilot projects to introduce cloud services into their organisations.

The other area of communications and collaboration that will be popular in 2010 is the wholehearted embrace of social media tools by the enterprise.

Rob Parcell, CEO, Alphawest

The computing platform of 2010 will definitely be cloud. It’s been waiting in the wings for the past 12 months, but Alphawest predicts strong growth in this area as customers take the leap and providers are able to deliver the secure infrastructure-as-a-service environments they’ve been waiting for.

In 2009, the market benefited greatly from the introduction of Cisco’s Unified Computing System, for which Alphawest was the first Cisco partner in Asia-Pacific to procure the infrastructure, in particular the flexibility it brings to data centres in reducing power consumption, improving sustainability and producing bottom line benefits. During the past year, we have been focused on making sure customers have the right infrastructures in their own data centres and that they are moving to the next generation of telecommunications networks, such as the Optus Evolve IP network, as the network is a key enabler in the adoption of cloud.

2010 will see an increase in interest in this concept because infrastructure-as-a-service will allow customers to manage complexity, innovation and cost in one package, treating all levels of IT as a managed service.

In addition, as the global credit squeeze eases and the Emissions Trading Scheme reform continues, we believe the green agenda will return in a big way and help drive adoption of high-definition videoconferencing that allows business to seriously increase productivity and cut travel expenses without sacrificing intimate relationships with customers and partners.

Paul Robson, Director of Enterprise Storage, Servers and Networking, HP South Pacific

The economy may appear to be stabilising, but the challenges that organisations will face in 2010 may become more complex than ever. In a world filled with rapid change, flexible technology will be key to gaining a competitive advantage.

CIOs will need three attributes to succeed in this unpredictable world:

  1. Line of sight - Organisations need to see around the next corner, to increase competitiveness and mitigate risk through business data management, information governance and business analytics.
  2. Innovation - CIOs need to provide ways to use technology to shorten time to revenue while rebalancing investment from operational costs to innovation.
  3. Elasticity - Organisations need to instantly adjust to dynamic business demands.

Consolidation of resources and improved utilisation has traditionally focused on server virtualisation. But even though fewer servers have meant a reduction in server complexity, the complexity shifted to the network, storage and management of the data centre. HP believes that in 2010, virtualisation will evolve beyond servers to a converged infrastructure architecture. This will bring together all data centre resources: server, storage, network, I/O, application and desktop. By transforming the data centre into a converged infrastructure, companies will increase business agility, administrator productivity and resource utilisation. It will also enable companies to rapidly implement solutions that provide a competitive advantage.

Maurice Famularo, Marketing Director Australia & New Zealand, D-Link Australia

D-Link sees the following trends:

  1. Continual consumerism of technology is making technology more appealing and creating more killer consumer applications. Use of wireless, storage and IP surveillance technologies is increasing and becoming more relevant to the consumer.
  2. The network infrastructure is becoming more important than ever as virtualisation and cloud computing continue to evolve. Even though it is relatively new, we expect to see new data centres being built to provide cloud computing services.
  3. Wireless connectivity will continue to grow among small and medium businesses (SMBs) - more so since wireless N is now ratified as a global standard. We will see more SMBs deploy business-grade wireless providing connectivity and mobility to their workforces and reaping the benefits in cost savings and increased productivity.
  4. Unified communications is also set to increase in 2010 driven by the benefits of merging voice and data over an IP managed network. Benefits include better use of network features and cost efficiencies in network hardware investments.
  5. Another trend which goes hand in hand with virtualisation is storage. Sometimes underestimated, storage is fast becoming an important strategic requirement for SMBs and usage levels will continue to increase.
  6. As traditional CCTV surveillance systems become more IP based we will see network infrastructure growth to accommodate IP surveillance and increasing integration of surveillance and data networks.

Gordon Makryllos, Vice President Pacific, APC by Schneider Electric

Governments, NGOs and customers will increase the pressure on business to improve energy management and usage in 2010. Energy efficiency will jump the queue to a priority consideration for IT procurement. For Australian and New Zealand businesses, electricity costs will increase significantly and come into the spotlight. CFOs will start to see the operational cost of electricity increasing the pressure on data centre managers.

Part of this focus will require CTOs to include a strategy for measuring the carbon footprint and, in addition, strategies for cutting energy operating costs. With the advent of cloud computing, businesses will see a rise in high-density centralised computing and as a result will need to place more emphasis on the energy the business is consuming. More focus and pressure will be placed on the data centre model being used.

Data centre design has now reached the tipping point where modular scalable designs will win out against one-time, site-specific engineering of data centres. 2010 needs to be the year of data centre design.

In 2010, the IT and facilities departments will need to come together to tackle and support business energy efficiency. Decisions made in isolation by one of these groups will impact negatively on the energy goals for the business.

Andrew Milroy, Industry Director, ICT Group, Frost & Sullivan

In 2010, the business environment will improve. This will lead organisations to increase their ICT spending and to carry out projects that were postponed as a result of the economic downturn. New investments will also drive a shift in the way we use ICT. Organisations will invest increasingly in thin clients or ‘netbooks’ and will embrace cloud computing as a way of offering ICT functionality as a service.

The ICT industry has been late to focus on sustainability issues. 2010 will see sustainability viewed not only as a way of increasing efficiency and reducing energy bills but also as an opportunity for investment. For example, utilities firms will examine how ICT can be used to transform their businesses in a sustainable manner. Over the next few years, utilities companies will invest in the development of truly interconnected systems that will develop new features such as peak load management, use of renewable sources when possible and detailed metering of energy use by device.

Investments in customer care, in particular customer loyalty technology, will increase as customer retention becomes critical for success in the most mature (and consolidated) sectors of the Australian economy such as banking and retail. Expect banks and retailers to start using additional means of customer interaction such as web chat and to introduce more sophisticated customer loyalty schemes. Also, don’t be surprised if your financial adviser attempts to ‘friend’ you on Facebook.

Rod Vawdrey, Chief Executive Officer, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand

Organisations are currently looking into technology solutions to help their business become leaner and more focused so they can emerge stronger and more competitive from the global financial crisis. In 2010, I predict that more organisations will turn to innovative technology solutions to improve their business processes and technology frameworks, transforming their organisations into stronger, dynamic and successful businesses.

Importantly, there will be an increasing global focus on technologies that support environmentally sustainable business practices, in keeping with the growing awareness of the need to care for our planet using green technologies. As the Australian economy moves towards carbon reporting and carbon trading, our expertise and innovation in the development and implementation of sustainable business strategy and solutions are going to become increasingly important.

To meet customer demands, Fujitsu’s technology investment in 2010 will focus on the launch of cloud computing solutions in the local market; strengthened end user computing offerings; expansion of data centres of excellence; and continued commitment to sustainability across all offerings.

In keeping with Fujitsu’s Customer Promise, our number one priority in 2010 will remain the delivery of great customer service.

Scott Robertson, Regional Director ANZ, WatchGuard

We don’t see a slowdown in the number of new threats hitting the market and the new variants being used to exploit businesses and end users. Cyber criminals will continue to have target goals in mind - to access your data and customer information or to gain access to your computers, servers and network resources.

With a projected annual growth rate of more than 20%, VoIP also represents a fast growing threat vector in corporate networks. Because of this, threats such as DoS attacks on VoIP networks, directory harvesting and ‘vishing’ attacks will continue to increase in popularity.

Botnets - hijacked computers containing malware applications - are also major concerns and liabilities for businesses in 2010. Because many botnets use the same protocols used for legitimate business applications, such as instant messaging, administrators are faced with limited options - eliminate IM or risk botnet infection, and loss of resources and control.

The increased pressure on IT departments to ‘do the same or more with less’ will encourage businesses to cast a wider net when looking at technology solutions and evaluating the return on investment.

Tim Cavill, Managing Director, ANZ, Orange Business Services

There has been a lot of talk this year around cloud computing and we’ve seen a number of our multinational customers move their IT resources into the cloud. We expect to see a rapid increase in this activity, because the cloud essentially allows companies to focus on their core business activity and leave their ITC requirements to the specialists.

Competition in this space will diversify and a number of partnerships will form as various technology suppliers team up to create an even bigger, safer and more flexible cloud. Integrated communications companies with a background in telecoms are well positioned in this market because cloud services rely on trustworthy network access.

We will see an increased uptake of some of the more sophisticated cloud services such as storage and backup as services, in-the-cloud-security, and flexible computing API and resources.

The new ‘hot spot’ next year will be machine-to-machine technology. It is now really taking off across the energy and utilities, health and logistics industries. With five times more machines that can be connected than people, companies are realising the potential to save time and money from developing intelligent machines. We expect to see some amazing new technologies emerge in this area in 2010.

Michael Mallia, General Manager - Power Quality, Eaton

The cost of running the data centre will continue to outpace the cost of the IT equipment itself. There are many strategies developing around reducing energy consumption through more efficient cooling and more efficient UPS systems, and these will continue to develop in 2010.

However, increased collaboration between IT and facilities departments will gain more focus as there are more cost reductions to be found and made by viewing the data centre/computer room and the facilities/utilities space ‘through a single pane of glass’. The technology is available today to bridge that gap, to leverage existing data centre meters and monitoring systems and monitor all critical systems, to reveal costs and efficiencies, not just availability and utilisation. This will yield not only cost reductions, but will also increase agility and flexibility, reduce risk, increase system reliability and give both groups access to a broader range of knowledge experts and best practices as the year progresses.

Matthew Johnston, Windows Management Product Director, Quest Software

As we slowly inch our way out of the global economic crisis, we will see the theme for 2010 transition away from cost savings to value generation. CIOs and IT leaders will start looking for systems and technologies that provide measurable business value and assist in the reduction of opex.

The key areas organisations will investigate for business value in 2010 are:

  1. Cloud computing - Organisations will continue to review the value that cloud computing can provide to the business. This will be in the form of increased efficiency, flexibility and scalability. This process will see the further development of the definition of cloud computing. Initially contained or out-of-the-box systems will be reviewed for movement to the cloud. A prime candidate for this will be email.
  2. Identity and access management - CIOs and IT leaders will look to increase efficiencies and reduce operational overheads by revisiting their identity and access management processes. This will be characterised by strict guidelines on ROI and look to leverage investments in technology such as Microsoft’s Active Directory across key line-of-business applications.
  3. Virtualisation management - CIOs and IT leaders will begin to review virtualisation strategies. They will review their server virtualisation processes to ensure they are gaining maximum value from their current investment while looking to leverage desktop and application virtualisation.
  4. Consolidation of collaboration technologies - Following initial investments into unified communications and collaboration platforms such as Microsoft’s SharePoint. CIOs and IT leaders will revisit these to understand the value they provide to the business and how organisations can standardise processes and procedures to ensure they leverage their current investment.

Phil Vasic, ANZ Country Manager, Websense

Most threats to information security are now leading to the web either using the internet as the attack vector or simply the route through which stolen, confidential data is transmitted.

The growing popularity of using wikis, blogs, mashups, social networking sites and other Web 2.0 tools will create ample opportunity for cyber criminals who seek to steal data. Because Web 2.0 sites rely heavily on user-generated content, anybody can easily embed data stealing malicious code or links to malicious sites. Additionally, users can easily post sensitive corporate information to message boards, blogs or other sites. At the same time, the convergence of blended web and email threats will continue to increase.

With the recent release of Microsoft Windows 7, attackers will be looking at ways to deliver malicious content to exploit known and zero day vulnerabilities within the new operating system, with a majority of the attacks coming via the Web and Web 2.0 enabled sites.

IT professionals will struggle to strike a balance between taking advantage of the benefits of Web 2.0 while at the same time weighing the security risks. The reality of the business environment today is that IT can no longer simply block access to Web 2.0. With a younger generation of employees entering the workforce and the blending of work and personal life, more employees in 2010 will not only expect to be able to use Web 2.0 technology but some will even want to use it as their preferred method of communication.

David Webster, EMC’s President for Australia and New Zealand

After what has been a challenging year for most IT players around the world, I expect the mood to lift somewhat in 2010 as customers get better budget visibility, are further down the path of rolling out programs to drive greater efficiency and the results of stimulus packages become more evident.

This year, we will continue to see virtualisation technologies transform IT into an increasingly efficient, flexible and cost-effective way to deliver services to the business.

For EMC, it’s about supporting customers on their journey to the private cloud - working with Cisco and VMware to create virtualised data centres of the future. Virtualisation is the core building block for the private cloud and as such this will continue to be at the top of many CIOs’ agendas. As organisations continue to consolidate resources and drive greater efficiencies and move to the private cloud, I also believe that automation and management technologies will become increasingly important.

EMC sees its role not only as a supplier of the enabling pieces that come together to create this new vision for IT but also as an adviser to its customers and partners as they embark on the journey towards private cloud. Customers will be presented with greater choice and control, and partners with opportunities to differentiate themselves through new business models.

I am sure when we look back on 2010 it will be recognised as a turning point in the industry, where these new models of IT revolutionise the way we work and live.

Peter O’Connor, Vice President, NetApp A/NZ

2010 will be the year of the cloud. In 2009, everyone was talking about it but in 2010, everyone will actually be doing it. Cloud computing represents simplicity for businesses and lucrative business opportunities for vendors and service providers. Early adopters have already taken advantage of the trend and seized new market opportunities by offering differentiated services and solutions with predictable costs and service levels. More and more players will come to the fore in the year ahead and the wheat will be separated quickly from the chaff.

The most successful organisations in the cloud services space will be those that have an efficient business model to ensure competitiveness; the ability to host multiple clients securely on the same infrastructure; always-on availability; service-level management; and complete data protection and interoperability.

Most CIOs won’t have the luxury of rebuilding their IT infrastructure from scratch, so 2010 will see businesses starting with a hybrid approach to the cloud. This will begin with building an internal cloud and migrating non-mission-critical applications to it, followed by identifying a set of applications that can be hosted externally. Ultimately, we will witness true data centre transformation, through the implementation of more and more cloud-enabled dynamic data centres across the enterprise.

Lloyd Borrett, Marketing Manager, AVG ANZ

Every year most of the security vendors’ forecasts predict dramatic spikes in volumes of spam, phishing, botnet activity and malware. And unfortunately, every year these predictions come true. While we’d prefer not to be sowing seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt, the cyber criminals are succeeding on such a scale and making so much money that each year they are able to invest in better and more automated ways to run their rapidly expanding and increasingly sophisticated operations. So once again we can safely predict that in 2010 the threat environment will look pretty much like this year - except that it will have more of everything and be even more transient, agile and organised!

So how will these threats arrive and in what form? More diverse, automatically generated malware, the bad guys still want your money, identity and/or resources, cyber criminals in the cloud, highly transient web threats, exploitation of major events, news and gossip, ‘Web two-point-uh-oh’, emerging nations go online with poor security and the global economic crisis impacts security.

Businesses are still too complacent but more people will buy complete protection. Last but not least, it will get worse before it gets better and the question posed to think about: Do you measure up for a safe 2010?

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