Corporate Not Doing Enough for E-Mail Security

According to a new International Data Corporation (IDC) survey for Secure Computing, 72% of business organizations have no arrangements for preventing leakage of data over e-mail. Also, 89% have no effective anti-spam platforms.

In the survey, IDC questioned 100 IT professionals and security decision takers in North American companies that employed 500 or more staff.

The survey discovered that unwanted e-mails were increasingly passing through messaging security software especially at the large organizations. Over all, 28% of the bigger organizations reported an increase in complaints about spam by over 10% since 2007.

Furthermore, accidental data loss is becoming the biggest threat businesses are encountering rather than attacks by malicious employees or hackers. According to IDC estimates, up to 90% of data leakage occurs accidentally.

The survey also found that even while outgoing e-mail are not protected. Incoming security threats are not adequately dealt with primarily because the organizations are using outdated technology. Almost 9 among 10 organizations did not possess a proper anti-spam system, and only 40% of respondents reported that they hadn't deployed systems which could block 95% of their incoming spam.

Besides, it is very difficult to reduce spam, since most of it comes with malicious programs or links pointing to sites hosting malware. Also, companies are not adopting adequate security measures to remain safe.

Although the organizations are concerned about their incoming and outgoing e-mail's security, the current solutions they are using not performing the job efficiently. Thus, it is time such organizations used the services of new delivery models and solutions.

According to Atri Chatterjee, Senior Vice President, Secure Computing, the study emphasizes that most organizations have failed to keep pace with the advancement in security technologies. As a result, they are incurring an expenditure that is much higher than is necessary to respond to cyber threats, as reported by computerweekly on October 21, 2008.

Chatterjee added that Secure Computing were aware how bad guys continuously finding new methods to attack, so it wanted to help the good guys in remaining a step ahead.

Related article: Corporate End Users Disdainful to IT Security

» SPAMfighter News - 11/1/2008