Malware Advancing Faster Than Companies Can Analyze It

IT is worried: More than half of IT leaders say malware sophistication is outpacing their ability to analyze it.

A new study conducted by Forrest Anderson Research and commissioned by Norman ASA found that 62 percent of IT pros have this concern, while 58 percent say their biggest worry is the growing number of threats.

Some 65 percent say they expect the number of malware threats to grow by more than 25 percent this year. The bad news is that they aren't catching targeted malware attacks, either: Only 17 percent say they do so. Meanwhile, only 45 percent say their security budgets for malware defense will increase this year, and 33 percent plan to add malware analysts to their teams. Only about half expect this expertise to be easy to find, however.

Darin Andersen, vice president and general manager, North America, for Norman, says this shows that a high percentage of IT feels like they are "behind the eight ball."

"This is a sophisticated audience of IT leaders that were surveyed, yet they are quite concerned that they can't upgrade their analysis capabilities fast enough and that they don't have enough analysts in place," Andersen says. "One in four lack the technology to analyze all of the malware threats coming their way."

Around 52 percent say they will add a commercial malware analysis tool to their internally developed ones, and 71 percent say they will do so because the internal apps are so high-maintenance. Some 54 percent already use both internally developed and commercial malware analysis tools.

"Malware analysis is a critical feedback loop to better educate how to prevent against future attacks," Andersen says. "If there's one thing that's surprising here [in the survey], it's that most companies are thinking about this."

Around 35 percent of the respondents say they purchased a commercial tool for cost-effective reasons, and 35 percent say they did so because of the increasing number of malware samples they are analyzing.

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