14 Security

Home and business security will see advances in line with smart home technology in 2017, experts say.

Smarter security devices that feature greater integration with smartphone apps are forecast to continue growing; surveillance cameras, movement and temperature sensors connected to the internet that are accessible from a smartphone will remain a mainstay of home and business security, and even see sales growth.

Makers of biometric methods of verifying employee identities – fingerprint readers, iris scanners, smart cards and the like – will continue to refine the efficiency of these systems. Expect to see improved accuracy and security measures to become far more difficult for criminals to defeat.

Businesses and homeowners will invest in more than one technology to secure their premises against unlawful entry.

And when it comes to IT security, Tarsus SecureData’s Nico Goodall says that 2017 will see a spike in the popularity of managed service providers that can help smaller businesses deal with the increasing complexity of the modern-day IT environment, especially relating to security.

Malware continues to grow at an alarming rate. Goodall says over 350 000 new malware variants are reported every day, and the number is only going up. And now, ransomware – malware that encrypts your data and demands payment to unlock it – is on the up-tick as well.

For a business to manage all of those risks itself requires significant investment in securing their networks, hiring IT staff and buying expensive software tools, as well as on-going training to keep staff sufficiently skilled to properly deal with the ever-changing threat landscape.

Goodall says that hiring managed service providers to deliver infrastructure and security as a service, businesses can side-step the up-front costs while also ensuring they get the cutting-edge knowledge and skills delivered by those companies.

“Smaller businesses don’t have the option to use big third party implementers for their IT needs, which is why there will likely be a rise in managed service providers servicing the market, especially around IT security.

“That’s because threats are occurring too fast for existing mechanisms to handle, and companies can’t keep up. There’s also a skills shortage, and the time to train existing employees up is simply too long. It’s thus easiest to employ MSPs with up-to-date skills to deliver their expertise as a service, rather than businesses trying to do everything themselves,” Goodall concludes.

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