In Their HIP Pocket: Prevention Security Solutions an Emerging Boom Market

BOSTON – Credit unions that find themselves paying for the latest trend in IT security protections are not alone. The market for what’s called host-intrusion prevention (HIP) software is gaining some serious traction, according to The Yankee Group, which says the HIP market will go from $60 million in 2002 to $520 million by 2007, a growth rate of more than 52% a year. HIP solutions are a new generation of protections that have arisen after firewalls were no longer enough to hold back possible attacks through the proliferation of new communication methods that increase the risk of intrusion from unknown rather than known sources, a new Yankee Group report says. Rather than relying on scanning data for signatures of known attacks, HIP software works with the operating system kernel to block abnormal application behavior in the expectation that it represents an unknown attack, the report says. “The mission of HIP is clear; prevent damage to network servers and desktops from unknown attacks. It is much more economical for the enterprise to invest in ounces of intrusion prevention than in pounds of after-attack cures,” says Eric Ogren, Yankee Group security solutions and services senior analyst.