Using Google to Identify Security Trends
The other day I was thinking about what is the best way to identify current trends on a macro level, to have an overview and understanding of what is currently happening and more importantly where to focus to mitigate against the risks and threats.
Currently my RSS feeds bring in over 1000 items a day, which is great on a micro level, but I wanted something with a wider view. So decided to try Google Trends and feed it some security keywords which gave some interesting results.
Keyword:
1) Hacking
This show’s Pakistan, India and Indonesia were the top 3 countries who searched for hacking and there’s a small and general increase for the term since 2004.
2) Zero Day
Zero day (0 day) was almost non-existent before 2004, the increasing trend seems quite accurate as the previously underground term found itself into in the mainstream media. Surprisingly Finland is on top searching for zero day the most, whereas India who topped “hacking” is now listed as number 8. Another noteworthy entry is Romania, which compliments trends of eastern European countries that have been increasing their activity in this area, especially as organised crime is involved.
3) Phishing
Phishing similarly evolved around 2004, with its peak around the middle of 2005. The trend show a slight decline possibly reflecting the increase in user awareness to not click on suspicious links.
4) Botnet
2004 seems to be quite a popular year where botnets also took the stage. The gradual rise in the term searches does reflect the amount of attention in the mainstream about them. The peaks show the main headlines covering stories regarding the popular botnets Storm and Kracken and the law enforcement successes by the FBI and Dutch police. Don’t exactly know why Norway is the top country searching for botnets.
The OS Wars
5) Operating Systems (Linux, XP, Vista, Apple)
This shows the steady decline of XP and Linux, the rise of Vista and OSX (Mac & Leopard revealed an almost zero result so decided to use the term Apple to be more comparable).
6) Linux
Linux searches have surprising been decreasing over the last 4 years. I would have thought with the popularity of ubuntu it will be on the rise. The amount of news stories covering linux in the lower graph seems to be constant.
7) Ubuntu
Showing the unsurprising increase of Ubuntu since 2004. One thing that I find interesting is that Italy is number 1 for Ubuntu searches, open source must be quite popular in Italy.
Apple
Apple has had an expected increase reflective of its increase in market share over the years. The launch of the iPhone has obviously helped with its popularity.
9) BSD
A favourite of mine, showing the enormous decline in popularity of the the *BSD family. Still FreeBSD is on top and Russia and Ukraine are the top countries. My favourite, BSDi, has not been around for quite a while.
10) Unix
Searching for Solaris, AIX and HPUX reveals and overall steady decline in popularity. Solaris and AIX evening out in 2008 and India, Singapore and Japan being the top countries for Solaris.
The Security Vendors
11) McAfee Vs Symantec
Both companies have been quite close over the years. The next graph details the activity in 2008. Also the Asian countries seem to be on top searching for Symantec.
12) McAfee Vs Symantec 2008
A closer view show’s McAfee was searched the most and it overtook Symantec for the first time.
In Conlusion
Google trends doesn’t replace hard metrics, threat reports from industry sources, correlated logs and alerts etc. But it does give you an insight on what people are searching for and from which geographic regions, thus giving you some awareness of what is going on, where to focus your attention on and what to look for to help mitigate threats and risks.
If you have some interesting searches please feel free to link back and display your results.
