I recently attended the 2011 Black Hat cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas. I recommend more physical security integrators take part in this venue to better understand the converging nature of the security business. I don’t expect physical system integrators to leap into cybersecurity tomorrow, but, these vendors in the cybersecurity arena are making money, economy be damned. The response to my question, “How’s business?” ranged from “Excellent” to “Incredible.” Cybersecurity and cloud computing are the future of our “physical” security market, and these vendors are looking for partners.
Black Hat’s record attendance was more than 6,000. The 60-plus exhibitors included traditional mega vendors like IBM, HP, Microsoft and Cisco, along with cloud computing plays like Qualys (Software as a Service), Rackspace (hosted cloud services), and global security solution providers like McAfee along with small and medium businesses (SMB), which are cyber niche players. These solution providers can extend the portfolios of integrators deploying a phased approach into this market.