Employees Misuse or Hackers?

Employee misuse of the corporate network is bigger security threat than hackers

According to a recent survey conducted by LSI, 41% of organisations see employee misuse of the corporate network as their biggest security threat.

The survey of 250 IT Directors and board-level decision makers, found that after employee misuse, 21% of organisations saw traditional hacking attacks as the biggest security threat to their organisation, closely followed by widening network perimeters (15%) and finally terrorist threats and lack of encryption in data centres.

John Bromhead, Tarari Content Processors Product Marketing, LSI commented: “The above figures show that staff education is key when it comes to security. Organisations need to make sure that staff are fully aware of the risks they can bring to an organisation when downloading images or leaving passwords around the office.”

Education, however, is only half of the solution; this needs to be backed up by a robust security system, especially when considering the growing amount of data crossing an organisation’s network. Threats such as Trojan Horses, spam and hackers are evolving year-on-year and failure to invest in the latest security runs the risk of being affected by any or all of the above.

Further findings showed that the most common reason for organisations not investing in network security is cost which comes as little surprise when considering the current economic climate. Furthermore, in view of the ever-growing environmental awareness, manufacturers will need to look to solutions that not only reduce cost and increase performance, but also reduce power output.

Bromhead continued: “Cost is always one of the biggest pain points when it comes to security and it is no surprise that this was highlighted as the main reason for businesses not investing in security technology. LSI is addressing this with its silicon-based Tarari® content inspection processors which will drive down the overall cost of adding greater intelligence, control and security into the network.”

The Tarari T1000 series, developed for networking OEMs facilitate the creation of multifaceted security procedures in the form of unified threat management applications that take care of information security, intrusion detection and virus control.

“Perceptions of security need to change so that organisations realise the benefits it can bring, not only threat protection, but also greater efficiency and corporate compliance. Security doesn’t have to cost the earth; there are evolving technologies out there, which really do offer strong cost and power savings. Gone are the days when this level of protection was only for the large enterprise,” concluded Bromhead.