With the recent release of its global 2010 State of Enterprise Security survey, Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) executives are urging partners to help customers protect their infrastructure, servers and data.
Matthew Steele, director of strategic technology at Symantec, said the Symantec-sponsored study was conducted by Applied Research last month and included responses from 2,100 participants from around the world. The survey participants included enterprise IT managers, chief information officers (CIOs) and chief information security officers (CISOs), from small (500-999 employees), mid (1,000-4,999 employees) and large (5,000+ employees) organizations. Of the 2,100 total participants, Steele said 400 were from North America, including Canada.
Steele said among the key findings were that 42 per cent of organizations rated security as their top issue, while 75 per cent of participants said they had experienced cyber-attacks within the last 12 months. Enterprise security was also identified as “becoming more difficult” due to factors such as understaffing, new IT initiatives and IT-related compliance rules and regulations.
“We’ve had a shift in the threat landscape where it has moved from attackers and hackers attacking on the infrastructure level, to now stealing data for financial gain,” he said. “While the infrastructure is not so much the target anymore, it’s still the gateway or stepping stone that’s being used as a platform for attackers to steal data, without the user knowing.”
Channel partners need to ensure they’re helping their customers protect their business’ infrastructure, while also protecting sensitive data, he explained.
“Customers need to understand how to protect data, where their sensitive data resides, who has access to it and they must also define IT policies and processes to help determine how people interact with data and manage it,” Steele said. “There are also security processes such as patch management, backup and restore, e-mail, Web protection and endpoint security for businesses to consider.”
Steele said that while protecting business data and content is important, customers need to realize it’s also a combination of user behaviour and processes, which translates to more secure business information and infrastructure.
Partners can help customers think about these security issues and can also help them protect their infrastructure, information and policies around solid systems management, Steele explained.
“I’d like to see our partners use this study as a resource to start driving the right conversations with their customers around effective security solutions,” Steele said. “IT managers are still trying to justify the money they spend on security, so partners can use this as a tool to show customers that other organizations are also facing the same security challenges.”