Awareness of network management and security is growing continually, driven strongly by legislation, the need to protect mission-critical information assets and often, by simple common sense. But the costs of a comprehensive e-security programme can be high for large corporates; exorbitant, even, for smaller organisations. Is the investment always necessary? According to the 2003 CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey, most definitely. The most important result from the survey was evidence that the risk of cyber attacks remains high, and that despite deploying an enviable range of security technologies, some organisations still fell victim to attacks that resulted in significant financial loss. However, while there is no shortage of malicious hacking activities, one positive may be that the severity of the resultant financial losses indicates a downward trend – the first time since 1999. Some 530 computer security practitioners participated in the survey, coming from diverse industries such as corporations, governmental agencies, medical institutions and universities. Of these, 56% reported unauthorised use of their systems, with a total annual loss of $201 797 340, down 56% from last year’s survey. According to Chris Davis, executive at NamITrust, the enterprise security division within NamITech, an important point to note is that this fairly high incident rate continues to be reported by organisations that actually do have security technologies in place. Full Story
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