Today’s Security Challenges

The Internet is a powerful platform that has become an integral part of our daily lives. However, anytime you browse the web or click on a URL embedded in an email, you can be victimized by technically sophisticated, profit-driven cyber criminals.

New unique samples added to AV-Test's malware repository (2000-2010)


AV-Test Malware Growth

Web-based threats can cause devastating damages:

  • financial loss
  • identify theft
  • loss of intellectual property or trade secrets
 

Effective security solutions must address two key challenges:

  1. Web threats are more complex than ever. Just a few years ago, a typical threat might be a virus delivered in the form of an email attachment. Designed to spread quickly, viruses often led to wide-spread outbreaks—yet they were simplistic in nature. The motive was typically fame or notoriety and regular updates eliminated the problem. Today's threats, however, are complex, multi-dimensional, coordinated attacks that are difficult to detect and prevent. The Smart Protection Network utilizes our own honeypots as well as Smart feedback to source unknown threats from consumers, SMB, Enterprise and Partners and uses patent-pending in-the-cloud correlation technology to quickly identify threats from multiple threat vectors (IP, Domain, Email, Web and Files).

  2. The number of threats has grown exponentially resulting in an overwhelming volume of pattern updates. In 1988, security vendors dealt with 1,738 unique threat samples, but in 2010 the number was 19M unique threats*. In 2008 Trend Micro saw 1,883 unique threat samples per hour, and by 2015 we expect to see over 25,000 new malware samples per hour. Security vendors are reacting by issuing more frequent pattern updates. However, the massive volume of updates can overload system resources resulting in critical performance issues. As the number of threats multiplies, this approach is unsustainable.
 

Endpoint Pattern Size Results for December 2008 through October 2010

Endpoint Pattern Growth

To be adequately protected, you need a comprehensive approach to security. Trend Micro™ Smart Protection Network™ eliminates the need for frequent, time consuming updates to the endpoint. As seen above**, Trend Micro endpoint systems have much smaller signature files due to moving the protection into the cloud.

 * Source: AV-Test.org
** Source: Trend Micro. Note sizes are the sum of all signature files located on the endpoint computer.