Australian businesses see spyware as their top web security issue, above employees accessing unauthorised Internet sites and web-based viral threats and malware.

A new survey of Australian businesses’ top security concerns and issues from security specialist MessageLabs found that 60% of companies have already experienced some form of spyware related issue.

The survey, conducted by MessageLabs in September 2005, found that 49% of the respondents cited Spyware as their biggest web threat and 66% ranked spyware in their top five overall IT security priorities.

“As IT security measures become more effective, the cyber criminals have to be more sophisticated in the way in the way they infiltrate corporate networks – constantly evolving new methods of attack,” said James Scollay, vice president MessageLabs Asia Pacific.

“Attackers now combine an understanding of human behaviour with technical subterfuge. We are seeing targeted spam posing as legitimate email which encourages readers to open links to sites which unintentionally download malicious code such as spyware.” 

Key Survey Findings:

· Almost half (49%) of the respondents see spyware as their #1 web security issue.

· Two thirds (66%) of respondents said spyware ranked in their top five IT security issues.

· Almost 60% of respondents had already experienced spyware issues.

· Over one third of companies currently have no web filtering in place.

· Almost half will introduce new or additional anti-spyware measures in the next 3-6 months.

· As a perceived potential security issue, the proportion of respondents identifying email threats has halved from 12 months ago from 62% to 32%; while spyware has increased eight times from 3% to 24%.