Howard (right) and Prince (below) say online peace can only come when corporations achieve "cyberbalance." Photos: Perimeter

On  the Internet, the good guys and the bad guys are inextricably connected. But what happens when one side gets the upper hand?

By Doug Howard, chief strategy officer, and Kevin Prince, chief technology officer, Perimeter E-Security

(The following is an edited excerpt of the forthcoming book, Security 2020, scheduled to be published next year.)

Since the inception of computers and more specifically, our global reliance upon them, the number, severity, complexity, and source of security threats have all increased exponentially many times over.

Why do threats emerge? Sometimes a developer wants notoriety (that was the primary motivation in the late 90's and the first few years of the new millennium) but today the main force behind digital threats is the hope of monetary gain.  Political and religious motivations are coming on strong, too.

At the same time, threat mitigation solutions and tactics constantly are developing to deal with these threats.  These solutions evolve over time and balance out each each new threat. The problem comes when threats emerge faster than solutions, and companies lose their balance. More