Many technology companies invested millions of dollars (euros) in the past years into their security and IT infrastructure. You have almost weekly some big software or appliance company announcing new products that are better then the old one and promise perfection. For technology companies it is almost a must in the public image to keep up with this trend. But why is this?

Other industry, such as manufacturing etc. do not generally keep up with this trend. As a mattor of fact a lot of those companies are just starting to invest into such an infrastructure. Yet you never hear about major incidents with leaked information or virus outbursts that bring down machinery in these companies. Judging by experience and conversations I have had with fellow Security professionals, this is due to the fact that these companies do not have a multitude of systems (YET!) and therefore do not need all the bells and whistles of a state of the art IT infrastructure.

Most of the manufacturing machinery is run by PC’s that run Windows NT or some even Windows 2000 but they are not connected to a network. Office machines usually do not need the newest Windows Vista or XP versions and laptops are only common amongst sales people or top management.

Since portable devices are scarce usually and the users do not run a myriad of programs that all contain vulnerabilities, the lockdown of those machines is usually quite simple.

The problem comes nowadays when smartphones become common and mobility is the new trend in the “other industry”. The trend seems to be that the technology companies reached a peak and are flatlining in innovation and demand and supply. It might just be that a lot of IT people in the manufacturing industry will look at people like mobsec for their mobility needs. A lot of procuts are quite mature nowadays, such as proxy appliances, anti virus solutions and firewall appliances. The tradtitional industries are now looking towards IT and start implementing whatever they need. This actually creates a lot of demand for seasoned professionals but you have to take the hit that you will not be on the bleeding edge anymore. Instead you will be implementing and designing something that will (or should) work for many years to come.

The manufacturing industry wants the professionals that have the knowledge and the experience and want to apply this knowledge. Tech jobs are getting harder to come by and with tech companies laying off people it might just be time to re-think where you want to go. There might be quite a few opportunities to make a carreer move or get some interesting work where you can concentrate on establishing something, instead of hunting after the newest products and listen to the bull**** of “this will work in the next version“…

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