Predictions for 2008 in Hindsight

In late 2007 I posted Predictions for 2008, my first foray into the world of prognostication. I'd like to review what I said to see how those ideas panned out.

  1. Expect greater government involvement in assessing the security of private sector networks. This is happening but not to the extent I expected. I predict more of this in 2009.

  2. Expect greater military involvement in defending private sector networks. This also started to happen, as noted in my post Predictions Panning Out. I now think this point will happen more slowly than #1.

  3. Expect increased awareness of external threats and less emphasis on insider threats. I nailed this one. In my posts More on 2008 Predictions and Insider Threat Prediction Materializing I documented several cases. Looking to a recent Jeremiah Grossman post as well, I doubt all those Web app hackers are insiders!

  4. Expect greater attention paid to incident response and network forensics, and less on prevention. You can't expect people to stop thinking about prevention, but detection and especially response are huge right now. Check out the results of the SANS coolest security jobs survey. IR and forensics are at the top.

  5. Expect talk of an "IPv6 gap," especially with respect to China. I missed this one. I really expected the Chinese to brag about their IPv6 network and for our politicians to push for some kind of upgrade to "catch" them. I wonder if President Obama will advocate IPv6 as part of his Internet infrastructure initiatives?



Richard Bejtlich is teaching new classes in DC and Europe in 2009. Register by 1 Jan and 1 Feb, respectively, for the best rates.

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