Cyber threats and attacks grow while losses mount

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 26 March 2009 09:27

IT Industry - Deals

“To put the problem in context, when asked to rank various risks in order of significance to their organisation, those ranking cyber attacks as No. 1 or No. 2 outpaced all other risks by a wide margin (twice as many as natural disasters and traditional crime and four times as many as terrorism).

“Not surprisingly, these attacks drive significant losses.  Nearly all (98 percent) experienced some sort of loss, with 46 percent experiencing downtime, 31 percent experiencing theft of customer or employee personally identifiable information and 25 percent seeing theft of corporate data.”

And, Symantec says that half those surveyed (49 percent) report that it is getting somewhat/significantly more difficult to provide IT security, with respondents citing a variety of factors, including the increase in threats, inadequate staffing, growing regulatory requirements and insufficient budgets.

Of these, staffing is especially problematic, according to Symantec, with two in five organisations saying they are somewhat/significantly understaffed, primarily because of difficulties finding qualified applicants, layoffs and lack of funds in the current economic situation.

Geyer says that exacerbating the problem is the fact that existing staff’s skill sets are too narrow and it is difficult to retain the best security staff.

Geyer also says that with the problem outgrowing IT’s ability to provide security internally, it is not a surprise that many - 61 percent - of those surveyed are embracing managed security services to bridge the security gap, with the reasons cited by IT management including the ability to provide 24x7 coverage, lower overall costs, access to security expertise and an enhanced ability to mitigate security risks.

If you want more detail on the findings in Symantec’s survey go to http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/about/media/managed_security_ent_US_12Mar09.pdf