How bad is it?

IT security architects have great faith in their security products. Some new research from Google gives architects, and end users, something to worry about. Recently, Google researchers examined millions of web sites in an effort to determine the number of sites attempting drive-by attacks against users. Drive-by attacks can be particularly dangerous because they are designed to evade detection and strike users when they least expect it; when they're surfing the web. Unsurprisingly, Google found a large number of malicious sites are working every day to compromise users' data. What's even worse, however, is that their research paints a bleak picture of the overall state of IT security. Security products are a commodity. The use of products such as firewalls, anti-virus systems, web filters, and IDS are well understood and documented. The purchasing of security products in well integrated into the IT spending of most organisations, complete with technology refresh cycles and very competitive procurement processes. The whole process can make an enterprise feel relatively secure based on the sheer volume of time invested and dollars spent.