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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:
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.
Comments are closed on this article
Mighty BOB!
February 13, 2009 at 1:13am
We have an annoying, persistent, autorun.inf trojan (and dozens of variants) on my college's school computer lab network that copies itself to all portable USB keys and hard drives. I just keep vigilant about it and manually delete it if it manages to get on my portable media. I also have autorun completely disabled on my home computers.
Really, staying vigilant, practicing safe habits, using that thing called common sense, and running a few good defense applications keeps it rather boring on the war front.
Now my roommates' computers on the other hand... Those are no-man's lands that I'm technical support for.
Gah. >.>
strykyr
February 11, 2009 at 5:03pm
My 17 yr. old and myspace. Effectively bogged it down so bad I couldn't do anything with it in safe mode even. At one point the task manager wouldn't even come up. I assume that was intentional to keep me form closing the program that was running the pop ups.
Then my father in law got suckered by one of those bogus anti virus jobs.
Personally, my biggest thing is pais enlargement, viagra and fake rolex scams. Once in a while tho I still win a lottery in Europe. How come I never see any of that money? I should be a trillionaire that's hung like a horse and can wear out my wife every night for the rest of my life with some of the fakest bling you ever saw.
