Security tools for e-mail have become commonplace, but the same isn't true for Web traffic. Security firms have found it tough to secure what comes into a network and computers over port 80, the network port used to browse the Web using the hypertext transfer protocol, or HTTP.

Sure, we have tools that take advantage of the way email works. For example, it uses a store and forward model so we can analyze and quarantine. Now we need tools that take advantage of Web threat characteristics, like the fact that the malicious code is sitting on a server somewhere, and sites that have links to site hosting malicious code probably shouldn't be trusted.

Tools like McAfee Site Advisor offer an assessment of trustworthiness of a site. But who can index all the information in the world, including malware? Google. They have the infrastructure to crawl the Web and analyze traffic patterns with tools like Google Analytics.

So the bad guys are shifting to Web based attacks. Ok that's expected but we have appliances for scanning traffic as it comes into and leaves a network. We do need someone to take on the challenge of finding malicious code where it rests, not just when it is in transit. What do you think; will we be hearing about security tools from Google Labs anytime soon?