The Myths of Security

Chapter 2. Security: Nobody Cares!

Why don’t the masses think too highly of the IT (information technology) security market? It wasn’t too long ago that every major news source reported about computer security problems on a regular basis. In 2001, the entire world heard about Code Red, Nimda, and Code Red II. But the level of coverage surrounding computer security issues has dropped steadily in the 7+ years since. Since Zotob in early 2005 (which was a minor story in comparison to the stories of 2001), nothing’s really come close to the level of coverage, even though the Storm Worm has been far more widespread a problem.

Actually, that was true when I started writing this book, but as I finish it, the Conficker worm has been saturating technology publications for the last six months. Everybody in the security field has heard about it, and many information technologists have as well. I’ve been polling friends and family about it, and I have found that people who do a good job of keeping up with news don’t know about it, which means if they did see an article about Conficker, they probably skipped it. Even my technical friends seem blasé about it, and many of the ones who would care have long since switched to the Mac.

Today, the tech world might hear a lot about security issues, but the world at large rarely does. That’s not because of a lack of security problems. Certainly, the amount of malware has been on an exponential growth curve for a few years, as there is a lot of money to ...