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Corp computer crimes: Indian employees more honest
From: InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>
Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 02:03:06 -0600
http://www.timesofindia.com/271100/27info1.htm By N Vidyasagar Monday, November 27, 2000 NEW DELHI: Indian employees are more honest and sincere than their counterparts in the developed countries, when it comes to corporate espionage or security breaches within the organisations. This has been revealed by CII-PriceWaterhouseCooper's (PWC) security survey of information systems. Going by the global trends, most of the security breaches or corporate espionage have taken place with the complicity of present or former employees of a company. The involvement of hackers in the corporate computer crime is not much. ``The survey indications on Indian corporates are a surprise. A number of CEOs and CIOs have admitted that their companies are subjected to hacking by computer terrorists rather than by their internal employees,'' PWC head of security services Neel Ratan told The Times of India. In a survey of around 700 chief information officers, it has been found that over 50 per cent of the culprits for the security breaches are computer hackers. In fact, a large number of information officers in India are not even aware of how have they been robbed, he said. Although major Indian companies have an Internet security policy mission statement to battle against hacker attacks, more than 50 per cent of the companies have said that they are not satisfied with their companies' information security policy. Ratan maintained that more than half of the respondents in sectors as wide as IT, manufacturing, multinational banks, FMCG companies, among others, have admitted that their companies have been vulnerable to virus and hacker attacks. In contrast to this, PWC's global survey had found the threat of security breaches from various quarters. In a survey of nearly 1,600 information technology professionals from 50 countries, 58 per cent authorised employees are responsible for security breaches, unauthorised employees accounted for 24 per cent and former employees for 13 per cent. Computer hackers or terrorists comprised another 13 per cent, while competitors accounted for 3 per cent only. Ratan said that as the hackers are the main culprits for the security breaches in Indian companies, the systemic damages done by them are serious in nature. But, at the same time, as there is very limited involvement of employees are there in security breaches in India, companies can take prudent measures to limit information losses, he said. Although no loss of figure is available, Ratan said that Indian companies have experienced security breaches in their computer network resulting in loss of revenue as well as that of key financial data in the last 12 months. However, he could not give a figure as the data are still being collated. The preliminary indications of the CII-PwC IT security survey with the topline Indian companies is an extension of PwC's global security survey which was undertaken to provide a benchmarking for Indian firms for IT security practices. The final study would be released at IT-Asia in Mumbai next month. ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com --- To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of "SIGNOFF ISN".
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