Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has just released its sixth annual Global Security Survey (PDF link). Some of the highlights (or lowlights, depending upon your point of view) include:

As in previous surveys, respondents recognize that people are both an organization’s greatest asset as well as its weakest link. But security vigilance is even more important in hard economic times, when the increased stress levels can lead people to behave in atypical ways.

Maybe DTT has cases like these in mind:

• a fired Fannie Mae programmer accused of planting a computer virus that could wipe out 4,000 servers
• a San Francisco computer engineer who held the city's computer network hostage last summer

The growing popularity of social networks and the proliferation of mobile media such as USB keys, MP3 players and PDAs, all cause an extra load on internal and external security. These devices present opportunities for unauthorized download and storage of confidential information in an unprotected medium. This is one of the factors that has contributed to the sudden rise of data protection and information leakage as a top priority for financial institutions—tied at second place with access and identity management.

Can anybody say "Conficker?"

There's good news, too, as DailyTech summarizes:

External breaches arising from viruses and worms dropped from affecting 43 percent of respondents in 2007 to 15 percent in 2008.  Email attacks likewise fell from 57 percent to 24 percent.  Phishing attacks also fell greatly, down to 7 percent from 38 percent the previous year.

So, whether you manage a fleet of PCs to pay for your gaming habit, or have enough to do in keeping your home network running, what have you found to be the biggest security threats you've faced in 2008? Hit Comment and post your war stories.

PDA image courtesy Techshout