In an event held last week in California, security vendors gathered to discuss the threats and general prospects for IT security in the coming months and years. On the whole, the predictions were fairly grim, with one expert describing the threats as being like snipers "shooting you in the head as you come out the door."

Dan Glassner, vice president of enterprise marketing at Trend Micro, expressed his belief that malware is the biggest security threat facing IT.

"The acceleration of malware is phenomenal. There's a new threat created every second," Glassner said. "Even companies with hundreds of people working on security are challenged because these are criminal organizations writing these [malware] programs and they're good at it."

Others put non-PC devices, such as printers, at the top of the threat list.

Our sister site, Datamation, has the full report.