Too much competition hurting security

IT managers cannot familiarise themselves with all the security products in a particular market

The existence of too many security companies in the market is causing information overload for IT managers, according to experts.

Check Point founder Gil Shewd warned in his keynote address to delegates at the Check Point Experience in Prague that there are products for "every buzzword in the industry".

Even if IT managers had unlimited budgets they would not have the time to familiarise themselves with all the products in a particular market.

"Today every security buzzword has two or more products to fix it," said Shewd.

"The main challenge to security is that administrators do not have enough time to evaluate even 10 per cent of these. So there are some things that they do not watch and consequently there are security holes."

Shewd claimed that there are over 700 security vendors in the market, many of which are niche players.

Some are pushing redundant kit, while others have good ideas which are too niche for mainstream deployment by most companies.

Shewd acknowledged that there has been some consolidation in the market, but that the rate of startups means that the problem of oversupply is not abating.

"Every time two companies consolidate another two seem to spring up in their place," he said.

Shewd also criticised mergers in which non-security companies take over existing security vendors and try to integrate their products into an existing range. This leads to a loss of focus on security as other business priorities take over.