Market Study Just Published: Information Security: Protecting the Business and its Information

Jan. 31, 2010 - PRLog -- As IT and its security experts struggle to keep up with the challenges of protecting organisations from a vast range of ongoing threat activity, the operation of the business itself and its users now present some of the most significant areas of risk. Traditionally, the key issues of business protection have focused on securing organisations against malicious-outsider attacks, but now, with more emphasis being placed on the protection of corporate data and customer information, internal threats posed by employees and business partners must come into the spotlight.
Today, information users, and the facilities that organisations make available to them, provide the single largest and least-protected opportunity for data theft and accidental data loss. Poorly managed access controls to corporate systems, lack of regulation over Web usage that allows malicious malware to prosper, and pitifully weak influences over the movement of corporate data between end-user devices, all contribute to operational environments where information assets are being put at risk.

Business Issues

The everyday use that is made of Web-based access and communications facilities provides universal information accessibility. It has enabled business to cut costs, supported increased operational efficiency, and delivered 24x7 serviceability. However, the growing presence of unregulated Web facilities, including socially driven Web 2.0 usage, is blurring the lines between the core business value of the Web and unacceptable personal use of corporate resources. This is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue unchecked and one where the security team must be allowed to regain control.
When considering all the communications and information access channels that are regularly used today, a common theme emerges. E-mail and Webmail, open Web access, the use that is made of video conferencing and electronic meeting rooms, and portal-based personalised access to company data, are all channels that are driven by an ease-of-use demand on business. Usage is quite rightly determined by time-saving efficiency requirements, but also along with these undeniable gains come a range of threats that strike at the sustainability of the business itself. This includes the requirement to properly control access to sensitive data: a position that needs to be emphatically supported in order to avoid fines for regulatory or legal non-compliance, keep away from unwanted publicity and the perception that the organisation cannot be trusted, and also to address brand-value losses that must remain a high business priority.
The outward extension of business operations, in order to support collaborative initiatives, adds value to the business efficiency paradigm. A significant part of the associated value-add proposition comes from the facility that each of the participating organisations has to see operational information that is owned by their partners. However, within such relationships each collaborating organisation remains responsible for all of the data that it gathers in and owns. Therefore, regulatory as well as straightforward operational responsibility dictates that security protection must be capable of operating across corporate boundaries.
There is no questioning the fact that trading conditions are difficult for all types of organisation, and that there is an obligation to deliver more value while utilising fewer resources. There is little appetite for increasing budgets for additional IT spend across any operational areas, let alone that of security which continues to be seen as a burden rather than as the provider of business continuity, risk management, and regulatory compliance that it should be. As such, a balance between value for money from corporate IT security spend and retaining what many CIOs and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) describe as good-enough levels of business protection needs to be achieved. The required goals are to ensure that information-driven, competitive initiatives can continue to be deployed and, where appropriate, businesses can carry on securely sharing information.


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