Park Dong-hoon, the president of the Korea Information Security Industry Association, made a keynote speech at the 2009 Korea Information Telecommunication Facilities Engineering fall seminar on Nov 19. The presentation covered the current status and problems of knowledge information security regarding to recent DDoS crisis.
With the development of IT technology, people are now living in a ubiquitous environment where everything is connected such as cellphones, computers, and mobile devices. However, more information through various networks created more demand for security. As the network became bigger and more complex, the trend in security is also changing from technical network protection to service security. Most people have some type of information stored in more than one network and many businesses have crucial information to protect. Due to the increase of cyber crimes, the knowledge information security industry has risen and it will continue to grow to be a convergence security industry. The information security industry is defined as the industry providing services to prevent crimes and disasters through security technology like passwords, encoding, surveillance, and recognition. The industry consists of information security, physical security and convergence security.
The potential for knowledge information security is tremendous. The estimated global market for 2013 is expected to be US$368 billion. Currently, the market is dominated by the US and EU at 88%. Korea has only 1.7% of global market share. The Korean knowledge information security market is estimated at W3.1 trillion in 2007, but it is expected to reach W18.4 trillion by 2013. For information security, most high-end security hardware is imported, but Korean software is exported to Japan, the US and other countries. For physical security, the market has expanded with 32% of annual growth. The 2009 market analysis showed that law enforcement has been strengthened due to several major information theft cases. Also, the public and finance sectors plan to establish the convergence security business against DDoS attacks and the industry will get bigger through M&A.
There have been several major security breaches since 2008 - the Blue House hacking, auction.com with over 10 million id thefts, Hanaro Telecom with 6 million id thefts, GS Caltex with 1.1 mil id thefts, and the 7/7 DDoS attack crisis. These types of cases show how vulnerable sites are with low security levels. The government does not have enough human resources in the security department. Many companies do not recognize security as investment but an expense. Also, most computer users do not use anti-virus programs, and their computers are exposed to hackers and are sometimes used as zombie PCs. The level of security systems does not meet the demand for increased internet use. The R&D investment is about 1,000 times less compared to the US, based on a 2007 survey. The solution for increasing cyber attacks is to establish a cyber crisis management system and produce more security professionals with more investment. The collaboration efforts between public and private sectors will help the security industry to grow.
