Symantec Report: Cyber Threats and Attacks Have

Symantec Corp. yesterday released the findings of its 2009 Managed
Security in the Enterprise Report. The study found that cyber risks
and actual attacks have grown significantly in the past two years and
are expected to continue to grow in the next two years. Nearly all
organizations surveyed (98 percent) have experienced tangible loss as
a result. This growth in risks and attacks comes at a time when IT
reports it is difficult to address the problems due to inadequate
budgets, increased regulatory pressures and staffing woes. As a
result, most U.S. enterprises (61 percent) are moving to adopt managed
security services. The study is based on surveys of 1,000 IT managers
in U.S. and European enterprises in January 2009.

"IT management in large enterprises is caught between a rock and a
hard place," said Grant Geyer, vice president of Managed Services at
Symantec. "Cyber security is a growing problem, yet organizations are
having trouble addressing the problem. Managed security services
provide a way for many organizations to close the gap and ensure that
their information and assets are protected."

Cyber Threats and Attacks Grow while Losses Mount

Cyber threats are growing rapidly. Nearly half of U.S. enterprises (46
percent) report that cyber threats have somewhat/significantly
increased in the past two years and are expected to
somewhat/significantly increase in the next two years. In fact, 88
percent of those surveyed saw cyber attacks in the past two years with
31 percent seeing attacks on a regular basis and 10 percent seeing a
large/extremely large number of attacks.

To put the problem in context, when asked to rank various risks in
order of significance to their organization, those ranking cyber
attacks as No. 1 or No. 2 outpaced all other risks by a wide margin
(twice as many as natural disasters and traditional crime and four
times as many as terrorism).