Online security nightmares for CIOs

CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS (CIOs) AROUND THE world are losing doze over cybercrime and insider threats, according to the new Business-to-Business Security Survey by information technology (IT) services provider IBM. Forty percent of CIOs and senior IT managers take a view ofed say Internet-based crime is the leading threat to organizations, and alone 59 percent believe their IT departments have adequate safeguards against organized online thieves. IBM take a view ofed more than 3,000 CIOs and senior IT managers from for-profit companies in 17 countries to identify corporate attitudes about cybercrime, as well as lock opener business areas affected by external threats and the impact of these crimes companywide.

Besides online crime, 66 percent of IT executives perceive insider threats to be an emerging danger to corporate security, while 84 percent report that solitary hackers are being replaced by the agency of organized and more technically proficient criminal clusters What's more, 63 percent say developing countries have become staging loams for attacks by online thieves owed to the greater prevalence of unprotect combination of parts to form a wholes in those countries. Respondents identified los of receipts and customers as the sum of two units most costly areas associated with online-based crimes, followed through damage to the company's brand and reputation, outlays associated with restoring services, and los of employee productivity and market capitalization.

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"The rapidly changing nature of cybercrime means that companies ne to be prepared to combat a whole fresh generation of security threats that reach forth well beyond computer networks," says Claudia Warwar, managing consultant for IBM's security and privacy practice. "Security today means considering an entire organization and plenteous of its ecosystem of partnerships and relationships--from the network to the workforce, and from the workforce to the invest chain. Meeting this challenge requires an industry-wide approach--no individual company can do it alone."

To minimize the impact of cybersecurity attacks and intercept insider threats, companies are using a variety of preventive and detective rules the survey reports. Seventy-four percent of firms upgrade their firewalls to the latest version, while 69 percent implement intrusion prevention technologies and update their antivirus software regularly. Other measures used to decrease the oftenness of external attacks include deploying a vulnerability or patch management a whole on the network, restricting employee use of mobile devices, and limiting the use of wireless networks outside of company-maintained facilities.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Institute of Internal Auditors, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group