| Cyber criminals pose the biggest threat to business security |
| Friday, 28 May 2010 10:20 | |
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Recent research has found that it's cyber criminals, not staff, who pose the biggest threat to business security.
The 2009 Verizon Business Data Breach Investigation report found that 74% of data breaches came from external sources, with 32% being linked to business partners. Only 20% of data breaches were caused by people within the business. Lloyd Borrett, marketing manager from software company AVG, said that standard anti-malware solutions are no longer sufficient to protect essential business technology systems. He said: "The security landscape has changed markedly during recent years. Organised criminal gangs realised there was money to be made from malware and recruited skilled programmers to create malicious programmes." "These programmes were not designed to cause disruption, but to enable the theft of money, or data, or both," he added. "This has led to the creation of an underground economy in which criminals can buy and sell data and the programmes that are used to steal that data." However, these claims have been challenged by Dawn Cappelli, a spokesperson from the Computer Emergency Response Team, who said that insiders should still be considered a serious threat. Cappelli said that businesses often rely on consultants and outside expertise. "Our definition of a malicious insider is a current or former employee, contractor or business partner," she said. "We've added the business partner aspect to the definition because of recent trends we're seeing." Cappelli added that the employees who breach security are often experiencing financial problems. She said the best approach is to have an adaptive security strategy in place, which will keep pace with the fast-evolving nature of IT security.
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