British companies vulnerable to hacking, viruses and crime - study

Telecomworldwire, Nov 8, 2001

TELECOMWORLDWIRE-8 November 2001-British companies vulnerable to hacking, viruses and crime - study (C)1994-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD http://www.m2.com

Many UK companies have ill-defined IT security policies and virtually non-existent password control, claims the IT services provider G.A.P. based on the results of its new study.

In the study, which questioned 100 IT directors, one in five of the respondents admitted that they do not have a policy that bars the introduction of external files to their network - enabling staff to freely load unknown disks and to download files from the Internet. Maybe partly because of this, over 40% of the questioned businesses had had a virus scare in the past three months and almost two thirds in the past six months.

The survey also revealed that many companies do not have a robust password policy. Although 83% of the respondents said that they had such a policy, less than one in ten change the password of work colleagues when an individual leaves the organisation and just 14% change all passwords when a key individual leaves.

G.A.P. notes that the lack of formalised password control will leave companies exposed to a threat from disgruntled or former employees. Companies should draft and implement a strict security policy and ensure that it is kept up-to-date, it adds.

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