Does the security industry need a new motto?

Leading channel execs discuss the changing nature of the market as part of a whole day of exclusive content

Everyone - from Gartner, to security experts, to the big security vendors - is talking about the shift in the security industry from ‘protect' to ‘detect and defend'.

We're told it's becoming less about stopping the bad guys getting in, and more about stopping them getting out.

However, this message is largely coming from the vendors, who have products to sell, and the analysts, who have reports to sell. So, we wanted to ask the people that are at the coalface, dealing with end users: is this trend real, or just hype? And if it is really happening, is it something resellers and SIs can get involved in, or is it the preserve of the big services giants?

According to which report you read, the effectiveness of anti-virus solutions has been pegged as low as a paltry 17 per cent. Ergo some commentators claim the IT security industry is on the cusp of a major shift in emphasis, with the focus moving from stopping the bad guys getting in, to preventing them getting out.

As part of our Online Security Summit this Wednesday, CRN will be screening an exclusive roundtable, in which we are joined by a selection of the UK's leading IT security VAR and SIs. We asked with them whether or not the entire security industry really undergoing a sea change in its raison d'être, and asked if its mission statement does, indeed, need updating. Topics up for discussion include:

* Whether the channel should be focusing less on 'protection' and more on detecting hackers once they are in, and then minimising the damage
* Whether customers are actually adopting the new breed of IT security solutions, or whether it is all vendor marketing hype
* Are the old breed of solutions like anti-virus and firewalls really dead? Is incident response really the future?
* What skills and technologies resellers should invest in to ensure they're equipped to reflect this industry shift
* Whether there is a looming skills shortage due to demand skilled in incident response

Screened at 10am, the webinar is the first event in a whole day dedicated to security. Stay tuned throughout Wednesday for a variety of content, brought to you by CRN and our sister title, Channelnomics Europe.

Click here to register to view any and all of the exclusive sessions of our inaugural online security summit. We look forward to seeing you there.