Report Shows Network Security Sales Up 24% in China
CCID Consulting released its latest data showing that the sales volume of China's network security market reached 1.782 billion Yuan, up 24.3 percent over 2006Q3. With the actualization of the ''Administrative Measures for the Graded Protection of Information Security'' the pivotal industries are paying more attention to the network security strategic plan. The network security demands such as security consulting, security management monitoring and grade evaluation have become the important driving forces of the market; and frequent accidents have compelled SMEs to devote more funds to network security. As for the segment product, despite the increase in firewalls relaxing, they are still the main force, while UTM, content security management and SSL VPNs maintain kilter.
The Network Security Market's Development Presents the Following Characteristics in 2007Q3:
First, the demands from telecommunications, finance, and energy industries, as well as government network security services have grown rapidly. The conflict between the main industries such as telecommunications, finance and energy, and the government's deepening dependency on the network have increased the number of network accidents, driving the improvement of network security. The demands of provincial network operators, banks, stockjobbers, petroleum, electric power and governments have also driven the rapid growth of network security management consulting, risk evaluation, network security management monitoring, grade evaluation and custom solutions.
Second, China's network equipment manufacturers such as Huawei are strengthening their offensives into the network security field.
On Sep. 28, 2007, Huawei cooperated with Bain Capital to acquire 3Com Company for $2.2 billion, and Huawei also founded a joint venture company with Symantec in May 2007. China's network equipment manufacturers such as Huawei are penetrating the network security field. The competition between China's network equipment manufacturers and foreign network equipment manufacturers such as Cisco and Juniper is heating up, and the competition is also bringing variables to the network security market pattern.
Third, is the current UTM market trend. The UTM market is in its infancy; a market leader is still yet to appear. The manufacturers have their own opinions on the future of UTM market. FortiNet, SonicWALL, WatchGuard, Juniper, Cisco, Leadsec, Venustech and Linktrust have all launched different UTM products and solutions.
Some manufacturers consider the high-end market as the breakthrough, including FortiNet and SonicWALL. They focus their attention on providing advanced services and secure guarantees to large enterprises and managed security services providers.
However, some manufacturers believe the medium market is the breakthrough. CheckPoint provides the larger selective room to users via their flexible strategy. Leadsec focuses on UTM platforms with integrated security within ASIC architecture. Venustech, on the other hand, emphasizes the idea of 'integrated design, deployment, defense and management' under the conception of 'simple security.'
The fourth and final characteristic is the sentencing of the creators of Worm.Nimaya. The people behind Worm.Nimaya have all been imprisoned for between 1-4 years, highlighting the ironhanded punishment that network crimes can expect. This, however, also highlights the ever-growing need for more network security legislations. Currently, existing legislations and regulations only cognized crimes that damage computer information systems as a result of the creation and/or dissemination of a virus, while there is no legislation regarding intrusion onto a system or simple data theft.
Such criminal actions via the Internet are rampant; however, China's juristic construction cannot catch up. It is urgent to improve legislation to solve the problems such as Trojan programs, Phishing and Backdoor.Huigezi in order to promote a secure Internet and strike at network crime.
CCID Consulting believes such steps should be taken:
First, strengthen the cognizance and protection of virtual property. At present, the law hasn't regulated that the equipment and data in network game accounts are virtual property. And the premise of the larceny is filching this property. It needs to give clear definitions of the virtual property and consider it in the same light as personal property.
Second, the cognizance of computer virus' need to be dramatically extended. The definition of Measures on the Prevention and Control of Computer Virus Leading-edge Technologies cannot cover the whole subject appropriately. The execution of the current laws face puzzling times.