Spyware News: Survey Highlights Time And Effort IT Must Spend On Malware

GreenBorder Technologies, Inc., a developer of Desktop DMZ software for Windows, recently announced survey results that provide insights into how dealing with malware is diverting enterprises from strategic security initiatives. In the survey, IT managers from more than 70 mid-tier companies nationwide identified data protection and privacy as their top priority for Internet security.

However, the companies report having to dedicate a significant percentage of their resources to cleaning up and patching infected systems despite near-universal deployment of conventional defenses such as anti-virus (97 percent) and network firewalls (96 percent), as well as widespread restrictions on use of Internet content (75 percent). User behavior and mobile systems were identified as the culprits that most often lead to malware penetrating the enterprise.

Designed to uncover key trends and current pain associated with malware penetrating the enterprise, the GreenBorder Internet Security Trends survey addressed various issues regarding Internet-based threats and their impact. The findings include:

 In ranking their biggest fears concerning malware, 56 percent of respondents rated data privacy and confidentiality number one, followed closely by cleanup efforts (54 percent) and interference with existing applications and systems (51 percent).

 When asked the top three ways malware gets into the enterprise, 67 percent of respondents said user behavior, 43 percent said zero-day attacks, and 33 percent blended and morphing threats.

 Eighty percent of respondents reported that it takes at least half a day to a day to clean, re-image, and restore PCs affected by malware.

 Seventy-five percent of respondents reported having had a rolled out patch that caused more problems then it solved.

 Respondents named compliance and confidentiality as their number one security business initiatives (87 percent), followed by better protections against Internet-borne threats (67 percent) and better protections for mobile users (53 percent).

Recent findings from the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT) 2005 Global Security Survey corroborate the GreenBorder survey results, according to GreenBorder Technologies. The DTT survey found that the increasing sophistication of threats (63 percent) and the lack of employee awareness (48 percent) contribute to an environment of exploitable vulnerabilities and weak operational processes.

According to the 2005 CSI FBI Computer Crime Survey, such an environment comes at a high cost -- virus attacks continue to swamp all other categories as the source of the greatest financial losses in 2005, with an associated cost of more than $42 million. According to the CSI survey authors, "respondents are more accurate than ever in accounting for their explicit costs (such as the cost of reinstalling software and reconfiguring computer systems)." These findings underscore the significant value that can be delivered by innovative technologies that account for the changing nature of Internet-based threats and the online behavior of today's users, the CSI FBI survey found.