No matter what database environment is in play, security remains the big worry for IT.

While I recently touched on some reasons why IBM is a compelling secure technology for the ERP infrastructure, I wanted to share some insights on security trends from IBM's latest X-Force 2010 Mid-Year Trend and Risk Report.

Web application vulnerabilities are the top threat, and account for over half of all public data disclosures. In just the first half of this year 4,396 new vulnerabilities were documented by the X-Force Research and Development team - that’s a 36% spike over the same time last year. On top of that, 55% had no vendor-supplied patch at the end of the period.

Cover attacks hidden within JavaScript and Portable Document Formats (PDFs) are getting more complex, and cloud computing and virtualization were noted as key future security topics for enterprises.

Here are some more interesting trends in play:

There are more Advanced Persistent Threats (incidents in which networks are breached without detection by traditional security tools) and JavaScript obfuscation is a particularly popular technique for hiding exploits within document files and Web pages.

PDFs are a bigger target than ever, and the biggest spike with attacks happened last spring when IBM Managed Security Services detected almost 37% more attack activity than the average for the first half of 2010.

While phishing is happening at a fraction of activity seen in 2009, financial institutions are still the top target.

New technologies being adopted, such as cloud computing and virtualization should prompt IT teams to examine security requirements of the workloads they intend to host in the cloud, rather than starting with an examination of different potential service providers. X-Force's vulnerability data shows that 35% of vulnerabilities impacting server class virtualization systems affect the hypervisor.

Get a full look at the report by visiting here.