Messaging Predictions for 2008

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Email Fingerprints

“Ongoing efforts to combat email fraud and phishing scams, which diminish the value of legitimate email, will continue in 2008. Customers should expect to see email sender authentication capabilities continue to grow. In particular, DKIM-capable products that permit an organization to add a digital “fingerprint” to outgoing email to help consumers and businesses identify legitimate email messages will proliferate. In support of that growth, expect authentication to be adopted by not only the major email senders and receivers, but also smaller domain owners.”

—Alt-N Technologies Founder and CEO Arvel Hathcock

Trojan 2.0 Is Coming!

“Robust and scalable crimeware will give maximum flexibility in terms of command and control. As a result, any organization, company, enterprise or business with Internet access will remain a potential target—no matter their size or location. The success rate of Trojan technologies using Web 2.0 as a main attack vector will continue and infecting PCs and networks through silent installations and drive-by downloads will remain popular. These “Trojan 2.0” attacks will combine various Web services to heighten their infection ratio while at the same time reducing the detection rate. To make things even more complicated, evasive techniques (such as the use of obfuscated codes) will be deployed to bypass security applications. To meet the growing demand for more effective protection, we will see that the security industry will start to close the gap between these new attack techniques and the conventional defense strategies, with real-time code inspection technologies. Trojan 2.0 is coming—but real-time code inspection is ready for battle.”

—Finjan CTO Yuval Ben-Itzhak

Humans

“In 2008 network and systems administrators will have to face challenges, which will tax their ability to adequately protect corporate networks. Various 2008 threat predictions have already been made: VOIP and virtualization; the evolution of malware; and Facebook widgets that will be used to distribute malware; are all issues that will have to be addressed. However, the challenges faced in 2008 will not stem from technology itself. In its nature, technology is a neutral element to be used in either a good or bad way. The biggest threat for 2008 is the same threat to businesses that has been around for thousands of years—human beings! Human beings, their weaknesses, fallacies and inquisitiveness can all be exploited to wreck havoc within organizations. This is what I believe will be of major concern for IT administrators.”

—GFI Director of Engineering Andre Muscat

A More Targeted Audience

“In three words: ‘Less is More.’ The key for email marketing success in 2008 will be continued vigilance in the cause of online brand reputation and careful segmentation and treatment of your email. The best practice of sending fewer email messages to a more targeted audience of customers in your database will emerge as a standard in 2008. Less email will mean more success for your business, whether you define success for your campaigns in terms of revenue, click-through, registrations or other success factors.”

—Habeas CEO Des Cahill

All-In-One Solution

“2008 will be the year that even more organizations outsource their message management to a vendor that can provide an all-in-one solution. With the demands placed on email and its vital importance as a corporate productivity tool, companies will look to a single vendor that can provide them with enterprise-class email services, including archiving, compliance management, business continuity, encryption, e-Discovery capabilities, spam and virus protection. In addition, the increasing mobility of the workforce will mean companies need to ensure that employees have constant access to email and shared calendaring from their smartphones, regardless of their location. The legal department will want assurance that all emails sent between mobile devices adhere to corporate compliance standards. For these reasons, 2008 will be the year where organizations are finally able to solve several message management issues with a single, complete solution.”

—LiveOffice President Matt Smith

Email Authentication

“In the year 2008 email authentication will be a blazing hot issue. With the ratification of DKIM and the announcements from several of the largest ISP’s to start making filtering decisions based on authentication checks, large marketers could find themselves in harms way without a strategy to authenticate their mail with DK/DKIM and SenderID/SPF. This not only holds true for top marketers and ecommerce companies, but also for corporate email. Phishing and spoofing is not limited to brand marketers, so protecting your corporate identity is equally critical, which means authenticating all mail leaving any of your domain properties. If authentication is not on your 2008 agenda, you are putting your brand and ultimate reputation at risk.”

—Message Systems VP of Field Operations Barry Abel

More Than Just Email

“This year will be the beginning of the end of email as a primary collaboration tool. This is the year that SharePoint and other collaboration tools will take over and reduce email overload. The number of emails will decline as people move toward using collaboration tools to share information. In 2008, we also expect that mobile devices, such as BlackBerrys, will become a preferred information source and will be carried by people at all levels in the organization, not just management. These devices also will become integrated with other applications and be useful for more than just email. In addition, due to the continued budget pressure and scarcity of skilled staff, the IT department will look more and more toward automation for management of its email infrastructure.”

—Neverfail CTO Paddy Falls

Ever-Increasing Issues

“In 2007 messaging saw nearly every software vendor experience vulnerabilities that put their clients at risk; combine this with the simple fact that messaging is often used to bypass enterprise SOX compliance measures. These issues with messaging grabbed IT professionals’ mindshare in 2007. With 2008 just beginning and a new vulnerability in Skype just being announced, 2008 will be yet another year of myriad messaging issues for enterprise managers.”

—Secure Computing VP Technology Evangelism Paul Henry

Data Protection

“Messaging security will continue to be a hot topic in 2008. Increased adoption of Data Loss Prevention (DLP) technologies will drive higher awareness of the volume of sensitive data leaving the enterprise via email. As a result, enterprises will increasingly need mechanisms, such as encryption, to protect that sensitive information, allowing business to flow while protecting corporate, customer, and partner data. 2008 will also see increased usage of secure messaging technologies as replacements for fax- or paper-based processes, providing an improved customer experience, while at the same time reducing costs for the enterprise.”

—Voltage Security Co-Founder Matt Pauker