Most employees who use IT resources believe they're security-savvy enough to avoid compromising their employers' networks, but IT staffers aren't as optimistic, according to a recently released survey of Toronto-based IT security experts.

Eighty-five per cent of IT users surveyed believed they were moderately- to well-aware of their organization's security issues or polices. But only 43% of enterprise IT staff shared that opinion. The survey was conducted via an e-mail questionnaire sent out to 175 Canadian enterprise IT staffers and users in late 2004.

Marcus Shields, enterprise product manager of the company that ran the survey, says the results of the aren't particularly surprising.

"From the average end user's perspective, their computer could be a hotbed of malware and viruses and in some cases the user would never know,” he explains. “Meanwhile the IT administrator comes along, runs a spyware check and nearly falls out of his chair. You can see in that situation how from the two sides' perspectives, they're both right.” Enterprise networks for the most part are secure internally, Shields says. Remote employees trying to access the company network are another story."

"The big challenge is the mobility of the end points is increasing to such an extent – that could be anything ranging from a Blackberry to a home computer – and the management tools to deal with those environments are so few and far between that it's a constant challenge," Shields says.

The solution to potential IT security problems lies in a mix of user education and security systems. One bright spot in the survey is that users are open to helping improve IT security. Ninety-five per cent of the users surveyed said they would use a new security system, even if they had to be trained to use it.

ISTCL can help to reduce your organization's exposure to security risks. We offer a suite of security offerings for small to large organizations, including security auditing and testing, security consulting, firewall configuration, user training, and more. Contact us for more information.

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