IT Security in the Real World - How IT Managers are Stemming the Tide

May 18, 2011 - PRLog -- The way we work today is very different to the way we worked even five years ago. Mobile technologies have proliferated, social media have skyrocketed – and hacking and malware writing has adapted to these changes, becoming cleverer, more subtle and increasingly professional.

Human beings are hardwired to expect tomorrow to be pretty much like today. We are poor at coping with exponential change. But with 30% of all the viruses ever released appearing in 2010 alone, in the IT security arena exponential change is just what we are seeing.

There is no room for complacency. As major brands like Play.com, Ebay, Facebook and just recently Sony have found out, being a global player is no protection. Indeed some sites are a target simply because, like Mount Everest, they are there, or because they present a trophy challenge.

In the last year alone, 46% of respondents to a Computing survey said their organisation’s networks had been infected with malware with 28% leaking data during 2010.

Pity the poor IT manager then. Not only does the IT team have to keep ahead of the growing tide of malware sweeping across the web, but the new ways of working and of using the web can open up novel security holes, use up precious bandwidth and threaten productivity as employees tweet the day away.

But how do we implement effective security policy in the real world, where staff are as likely to be accessing the network from an iPad in Starbucks as from the PC on their desk? Very few IT managers thought that locking down the internet was the answer. However 57% said they actively block Skype, P2P networking, chat and IM clients; 51% restrict access to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace; and 49% block users from downloading applications.

Many companies take the opposite tack and encourage staff to blog or maintain Twitter feeds – doing so may have countless brand-awareness advantages – and in this context preventing them from accessing other media would be practically impossible.

Nevertheless, a security breach in one part of the extended enterprise – be it in a customer, a partner, an affiliate, or a supplier – can mean that a whole network of organisations are affected. Security is no longer simply a point solution and an on-premise patch, it is also a collaborative business process that, above all, needs smart management.

Download the report: http://www.ithound.com/abstract/managing-rapidly-evolving...

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