Information threat horizon a major cause for concern

Davey Winder
Wednesday, 25 June 2008 05:32

Your IT - Home IT

"The mobile internet is still in its relative infancy and it is important that consumers do not lose confidence in mobile transactions," says Jones. "Companies will also face new challenges to manage and secure their corporate mobile devices to prevent employees from leaking information, either voluntarily or involuntarily."

The third main area of interest in the Threat Horizons report would appear to be Web 2.0, and in particular social networking sites. Facebook has become an undeniable part of office culture, whether employers like it or not. The ISF says that as well as providing another channel for corporate data leakage, accidental or otherwise, cyber criminals will adapt new methods of attack to target these sites.

Real world brand damage done in virtual worlds such as Second Life should not be overlooked either.

If all that were not bad enough, the ISF reminds us that there is also a risk presented by a new techno-generation corporate culture driven by a younger, more technologically aware workforce. You might think that this would be a good thing, but being IT savvy and being IT security savvy are two very distinct things.

The report itself is only available to ISF Members, and designed to help them take informed and pro-active actions to mitigate emerging risk. However, us mere mortals can plug into the insight offered by the real world research of the not-for-profit organisation by accessing the ISF Standard of Good Practice for Information Security. This is available free to non-members.