IBM: Security business a "futile pursuit"

 

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By Asavin Wattanajantra

Posted on 10 Apr 2008 at 16:08

IBM says it's tired of staying on top of the latest security threats, and intends to stop trying.

Speaking at the RSA conference in San Francisco, IBM called the security battle a never ending cycle of success and failure with new malware and methods of cybercrime arriving every day.

"The security business has no future. We're putting an end to it," claimed Val Rahmani, general manager at IBM Internet Security Systems. "The security business' obsession with fighting worms, trojans, viruses, insiders, outsiders, criminals, Martians. It's a futile pursuit."

"We keep rolling that boulder up the hill, and just when we think we've got there, along comes a new threat and we are starting all over again."

Rahmani then answered the question of how the security business could be dead if IBM had bought 12 security companies last year and publicly stated it was going to spend $1.5 billion this year on security.

"The answer is simple. We are spending all that money to get out of the business of security and into business sustainability. I'm advising you now. That's the business we should all be in."

Business sustainability

She claimed companies know there's a continued threat to their business sustainability, but that that it can't be combated while the industry continues to work on each individual security threat.

"The computer industry is growing at a rapid pace, and the threats they face are growing even faster. However, the security business is lagging," she said.

"The security industry pretty much looks like it was 20 years ago. Every product has a point solution. The problem with this mentality is that it is much better geared at solving Elk Cloner [one of the first known viruses that spread in the wild] instead of current parasitic threats."

Instead IBM envisages security being designed into systems and processes, she claimed. This means that businesses could expand their capabilities and into new markets without increasing security risk.