Gartner lambasts security FUDmongers

Some organisations are holding back on the deployment of new technologies because of exaggerated IT security risks, according to Gartner. The analyst firm took aim at what it identified as the five most over-hyped threats at the end of a three-day IT security conference at its Stanford, Connecticut HQ, this week.

According to Gartner, the five most over-hyped security threats are:

• Internet Protocol (IP) telephony is unsafe
• Mobile malware will cause widespread damage
• "Warhol Worms" will make the Internet unreliable for business traffic and virtual private networks (VPNs)
• Regulatory compliance equals security
• Wireless hot spots are unsafe

"Many businesses are delaying rolling out high productivity technologies, such as wireless local area networks (WLANs) and IP telephony systems because they have seen so much hype about potential threats," said Lawrence Orans, principal analyst at Gartner.

Gartner analysts singled out the ideas that IP Telephony is unsafe and that mobile malware will be a big problem for particular scorn.

"The reality is that security attacks are rare for IP telephony. Preventive measures for securing an IP telephony environment are very similar to securing a data-only environment. IP telephony eavesdropping is the most over-hyped threat. Eavesdropping is unlikely to happen since it requires local area network (LAN)-based access to the intranet," it said. And besides which firms can always encrypt traffic.

Mobile malware risks were dismissed as a "niche nuisance" in the foreseeable future if for no other reason than penetration of smartphone and personal digital assistants (PDAs) with always-on wireless capabilities remains low.

"Anti-virus vendors see huge potential profit opportunities in selling security solutions to billions of cell phone and PDA users," John Pescatore, vice president said. "In particular, the anti-viral industry sees cell phones as the way to grow sales outside of a flat, commoditized PC market. However, device-side anti-viruses for cell phones will be completely ineffective. The most effective approach to blocking mobile malware will be to block it in the network," he added.

In the past Gartner has been vocal about corporate wireless security issues in particular but like us they've probably had their fill of talk of Evil Twin threats and the like so we can excuse them for letting off steam. It's pretty well known that fear pushes security sales but over recent months the trend of vendors talking up real or perceived security risks has became more pronounced and tiresome than ever. Think of a threat real or imagined (phishing, pharming, Evil Twin Wi-Fi hotspots, hackers taking over the national grid, Bluesnarfing etc. etc. ad nauseam) and it only a matter of days or week before vendors tout "silver-bullet" security solutions. Gartner's rant represents a welcome reality check against that onslaught.

However one question remains: what have the anti-virus vendors done to upset Pescatore so much? How else to explain his (admittedly entertaining) diatribe? ®

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