Cisco Survey: Spyware & Bots No.1 Security Concern for IT Professionals

As per a study released on November 9, 2007, almost 3 quarters of the IT managers with the evaluators of US government are devoting additional time on mandating security requirements as compared to the last year, but unfortunately, only half of them feels secure about the security of their agency.

The survey, carried out by Cisco systems, discovered that spyware and bots are the prime concern of the respondents coupled with the reduction of operations, owing to security infringement and inefficient and incompetent users. Further, over half of the respondents also declared that they fear of losing their secrecy for citizens and employees because of security breaches.

An administrator of federal sales and security at Cisco, Dave Graziano, said that as compared to the two earlier annual surveys, in this survey, it has been discovered that the respondents are preoccupied in dealing with bots and spyware issues rather than operating high level security architecture, as per the news by SCMagazineUS.com on November, 2007.

Vice president of Market Connections Inc., Aaron Heffron, said after examining the survey, that in the past 3 years, they have not got the required reduction in time and also not noticed a rise in the level of confidence even after an everlasting effort, as per the news by PC World on November 11, 2007.

On asking what the major hurdles in realizing superior network security are, 55% of the respondents believed user training along with 55% complaining about security architecture. Further major concerns comprises of additional projects and existence of inexperienced personnel's. Backing, a deficiency of efficient management support and staff were the major challenges which the respondents provided to complying FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act), which was granted by the US Congress during 2002.

Junior Executive Advisor to Cisco's public sector Internet business solutions Group, Gerald Charles, said that the lawmakers of the US have shifted their attention from agency compliance to permitting agencies to set up security systems. Gerald also said that the IT managers had told that they are paying too much attention on "fighting fires" and not devoting enough time on ling term build outs, as per the reports by PC World on November 11, 2007.

This survey was Cisco's third yearly security survey in relation to the US government users, as well as it was a record that for the first time, concern has been shown for security against spyware and bots.

Related article: Cisco Finds Two Vulnerabilities and Recommends for Patches

» SPAMfighter News - 11/22/2007