And the winner is….?

I came across a survey in PC Advisor that got me thinking. They asked their users ‘what’s the most important aspect of their security product’s arsenal?’. The resounding winner was the ‘firewall’ with 45% of respondents voting for it, followed by ‘signature based AV’ with 19% and the  ‘behavioural analysis’, with 16%. So, there you have it, the firewall is still ‘top-dog’ when it comes to security in the eyes of the readers of PC Advisor.

There was a side of me that was pleased that the readers felt comfortable and able to discern the elements of a modern day security product. Well, we have been talking about ‘strength-in-depth’ for a long time now and people would seem to recognise and understand this. But then again, one could generalise that the readers of PC Advisor are the more technically engaged and interested. Hence, they could determine the different aspect of a security product’s arsenal.  The reality is that probably, most people would not know the respective merits of one element of a security product from another. Nor should they I suppose, they expect us security companies to take care of all this stuff for them.

In that regard security software has gone the way of the automotive industry. Gone are the days when  you could lift the ‘bonnet’ of a car and marvel at the site of the carburettor, the overhead gasket and the timing belt. Back then, we were encouraged to take an interest, it was a talking point in drive-ways across the land as men-folk (trying not to be sexist here), would congregate to view and discuss the relative merits of one car engine versus the other. Have we fallen out of love with the car? No, we have simply moved on.

Now, with security software, times are moving on and fast. Many of the more obvious elements of the software are being supplanted and changed. We are trying to keep security software ‘out of the faces of users’, as much as we can. We are trying to do much of the job in the background and away from the user. It will be interesting to see, what aspects, of a security product PC Advisor readers will rate in two to three years time.

October 2, 2008 | Filed Under Security, Technology 

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