If you are a security hardware or software manufacturer, you most likely spend a considerable amount of time understanding your competition. Reading their features and understanding what they offer. You also are spending money to make sure your product exceeds their specifications. That way you can say your product is better, faster, and more secure. But they are doing the same to you. And eventually you are playing a non-stop game of tennis with a never-ending volley. You have a faster product this quarter, next quarter they do. Your model wins this test and theirs wins that one.
Then you turn your focus to what they do wrong. You spend research dollars finding flaws in their system. You can then send in a sales engineer on sales calls and they can say “The SonicGate Firewall has a port 23001 flaw that if exploited…”. Are you listening to yourselves?
As consumers of these products are we the beneficiary of these battles? What do we gain from watching this never-ending tennis match? Who the hell uses port 23001 anyway and why would I care?
Watching these fights in the technology world is fun for a while, much like the first couple political debates. But eventually you need to step back and ask what are they talking about? What are they doing to win the security battle, not just react to it? Eventually you need to fire the first round instead of just returning fire.
Day in and day out hackers win. They gain access to private information, they steal credit card data, and they ruin lives. And many security companies are on the sidelines arguing like they are in divorce court and who should get the family coffee mugs.
It is time some security manufacturer steps up and changes the game. Changes the argument. And changes the future of security. Stop reacting to one another and start thinking how you can proactively protect our clients and employees. If you don’t someone else will steal your market share.