Trending Threats

This month in CRNtech, we're launching a new and slightly redefined security section -- the CRN Security Center -- that expands our coverage into a new area: trend spotting.

We're well beyond the days when patch management was the be-all and end-all of security best practices. Today, you can't begin to address threats unless you know what they are and from where they're coming.

Over the past year, the CRN Test Center has spent time developing an internal honey network, measuring attacks on our fake network against attacks reported publicly by others, and working to understand the important trends. This has allowed us to not only review security products, but to focus on the products and technologies that address real-world risks.

" 'Good enough' isn't good enough anymore," Kenneth Schneider, CTO and VP Fellow of Symantec's Security and Data Management Group, told us during a recent visit. Best practices are evolving.

During the past year, as we've watched the threat landscape, we've become increasingly concerned about attacks against our database from domestic and international sources. Port scanning against our network has become 24x7, attempts against our SQL database almost nonstop. People out there are looking to steal our data, our information, your information.

Earlier this year, when The Wall Street Journal reported on an increasing number of attacks against U.S. infrastructure by sources in places such as Russia and China, it wasn't exactly a surprise to us. Our trap network had spotted an increasing trend of attacks against our Manhasset, N.Y.-based Test Center network from geographies including those countries.

In the coming months, we'll be keeping our eyes open for attacks and malicious strategies that leverage social networking and areas such as short URLs. Also, as much as possible, we'll be watching to see if any new threats emerge as a result of the current and continued massive migration to smartphones.

Schneider says that while Symantec once had to contend with about 50,000 threat signatures per year, that number is now up to 1.7 million and growing. You see where this is headed.

Our goal with the CRN Security Center is to keep you up to date on the threat trends as we see them, independently, and then use that information to assess how best to address those threats. We'll do that here, in the pages of CRNtech, but also on Channelweb.com and, over time, on Channelweb Connect and community.crn.com.

We'll do our best to share every bit of data that could be important or helpful to you in keeping customers and networks safe. We also hope to hear from you about trends that you spot, new signatures that you see or vulnerabilities that emerge. Hackers have absolutely no qualms about sharing information or even buying or selling malware on the open market.

The best defense will be information, and we're starting anew on our end with the CRN Security Center.