Last year was another big year for cyber-criminals and the security industry, marked by several high-profile data breaches.

So much so that Peter Benson, Trend Micro New Zealand senior security architect, takes a look at what 2014 might hold on the security front.

Major incidents like these will continue to ensue in the coming year and New Zealand organisations will experience a barrage of targeted attacks.

In fact, Trend Micro predicts that globally we will see at least one major data breach incident every month throughout 2014.

The biggest change and growth we can see heading toward New Zealand in the security market is twofold: firstly, cloud computing will continue along the same trajectory of rapid uptake, fuelled by the growing knowledge that security is no longer an inhibitor to adopting cloud technologies, but an enabler.

Secondly, as more threats go mobile and we expect the volume of malicious and high-risk Android apps to reach three million by the end of 2014, the mobile security market will be vital in protecting against these attacks.

These, and many other areas of security, will continue to provide opportunities for the channel to help New Zealand businesses and consumers protect themselves.

Cloud adoption will continue to grow, with security as an enabler Last year saw growing cloud adoption in New Zealand, more rapidly than expected. This year will see the continued acceleration of cloud adoption, including a more serious move toward cloud by our government departments.

We have already begun to see consolidation and strategic relationships in the cloud computing space, and 2014 will see the more public emergence of highly specialised organisations in cloud based services.

Trend Micro will continue to work with the New Zealand channel to provide server security for physical, virtual and cloud environments, with 2014 seeing the introduction of industry-first consumption-based pricing models allowing customers to pay for security based on actual cloud usage.

Mobile security will become vital as threats go mobile

Last year played host to major mobile threats, a trend we’ll continue to see in 2014. Mobile devices will become the attack vector of choice, bringing in nastier threats and attacks.

We saw the acceleration of mobile security adoption amongst consumers in 2013. In 2014 we will also see the market further embracing the need for mobile security as well as seeing identity theft protection come to prominence in the internet security space across all devices, not just in the traditional PC space.

New Zealand resellers have the potential to take greater advantage of this and increase channel and end user education levels.

This year will be another year of rapidly evolving security threats and technology advancements so it makes sense for the channel to focus on current security threats and prepare for what is ahead.

Talk to your customers and ensure they put solutions in place that will mitigate these threats in 2014 and beyond.