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More than 80% of the 103 Directors surveyed prioritized insider threats, defined as either unintentional data leakage or deliberate data theft, as greater concerns when asked whether they believed insider or outsider threats posed a bigger problem to their organization. Less than one in five respondents, or 17%, believe that the external threats posed by hackers are more dangerous.
Nimer Ghazal, Regional Sales Manager - Middle East, Secure Computing, said,
"It's fascinating to see how perceptions of the threat landscape among senior IT decision makers is evolving, with the insider threat and data leakage rivaling traditional external threats among IT Directors' primary concerns. It's also very encouraging to see that security is starting to be seen as a genuine business enabler rather than just a necessary evil."
The growing concern over insider threats is being attributed to the fact that 37% of respondents have experienced leakage of sensitive information in the past year. Internal security was thus a primary consideration when respondents were asked to rank potential future investments that included perimeter security, staff mobility and network performance.
Email was identified as the biggest current security risk to their organizations by 34% of respondents, followed by Voice over IP at 25%, and lastly by browser-related threats at 21%. However, 79% of respondents felt that they could be better prepared for Web-borne threats.
Established external threats continue to be the biggest concern in a developing Web 2.0 environment. Viruses top the list of offenders, with 31% of IT Directors feeling it is the biggest threat, while spam comes in second at 18% and data leaks a close third at 14%. Curiously, only 22% of respondents felt that hackers posed the biggest external security concern. Malware, however, worried 56% of Directors.
Internal security was identified as the priority planned investment of 35% of respondents; despite the expected economic downturn, "IT asset management for cost savings" was given the lowest priority by Directors. IT Security was considered a genuine business enabler and as important as any other IT project by 89% of respondents, with only 11% or one in 10 respondents perceiving it as a "necessary evil."
The survey finally revealed that over two-thirds or 68% of respondents believe that data breach disclosure should be compulsory in the UK as it is in the US.
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Posted by Anne-Birte Stensgaard, Senior News Editor
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