Your New Client Security Analyst

After seven years, my colleague Natalie Lambert is leaving Forrester. In the year that I have been at Forrester, she has been a good team-mate, sounding board for ideas, gleeful mischief-maker, and collaborator on shared research topics. I will miss her insights and energy, and I wish her the best as she begins her next adventure.

Natalie covered quite a bit of ground: client security, client management, endpoint virtualization, Bring-Your-Own-PC programs, full disk encryption and several other topics. While it would be impossible to fill her shoes, I am strapping on my hip waders and immersing myself in several of her research topics.

Specifically: henceforth, I will cover all client security topics for Forrester. These include:

• data leak prevention (DLP) on the client
• full disk encryption
• client security (anti-malware and anti-virus)

I am pleased to cover client security topics again. I wrote extensively about client security for three-and-a-half years before coming to Forrester. Among other things, I correctly predicted that Windows Vista would have no effect on the Windows security aftermarket — six months before Vista launched. And in 2006 and 2007, I anticipated the rapid move of anti-virus to the cloud, which we see today in Panda Security’s “collective intelligence,” in McAfee’s Artemis project, Trend Micro’s Smart Protection Network, and in new startups like Immunet. For cloud coverage of client security, I will partner with Chenxi Wang, but security topics that have anything to do with stuff sitting on endpoints, I will be your analyst.

I will not take on any of Natalie’s IT operations topics, such as BYOPC, mobile management, client management. These areas will be covered by other analysts on the infrastructure and operations (I&O) research team, chiefly Chris Silva and Ben Gray. Rather than speak for them, I will let them speak for themselves. I will collaborate with Ben and Chris on security strategies and best practices as it affects their topics.

I will also retain my coverage of data security topics, notably data leak prevention (DLP) and enterprise rights management. A few subjects will transition to my other colleagues on the Security and Risk team. We will likely announce details after we conclude those discussions.

In the meantime, Forrester customers who would like clarification on what the shift in security coverage means for you should contact their client services representative. I would be happy to speak with you! But the short answer is that not much is changing. You will talk to me rather than Natalie. She provided excellent coverage of client security topics, and I will strive to do the same.

 

[posted by Andrew Jaquith]