Security remains high on the agenda

A raft of new legislation and regulations put IT departments across the commercial and industrial sectors under considerable pressure last year, and there appears to be no let up in sight for 2005.
“Many companies had to put aside significant percentages of their IT budget during 2004 to help them comply with new regulations – in particular Sarbanes Oxley,” said Chris Knowles, a technology practice leader for Computacenter. “This focus on compliance will continue during this year, and will once again eat into IT budgets and resources.”

Patch management was also a major issue that strained IT budgets in 2004. And there's no sign of a let-up for IT departments this year. Indeed, IT security as a whole will pose a continuing challenge for companies in the commercial and industry sector throughout 2005.

According to the FBI, more than 90 per cent of all security breaches involved a software vulnerability caused by a missing patch, which IT departments already knew about but had failed to implement. “Keeping up with all the new patches being issued every month can cause IT departments to lag behind, leaving their systems open to viruses, worms and hackers,” said Knowles. Every new patch also needs to be tested and validated before being rolled out. If patch management is not handled properly a faulty patch could be installed, which could then bring down critical servers. This has massive implications for business continuity, and could end up costing companies more than a potential security breach.

Threats from sophisticated trojans, worms and distributed denial of service attacks will also continue to pose significant challenges for IT directors. This comes at a time when IT directors – in spite of budget restrictions – have to consider investing in new technology, particularly mobile and wireless solutions.

These technologies will have a major impact on commercial and industrial companies in 2005. But as more businesses seek to take advantage of the flexibility and cost-efficiency offered by mobile solutions, there will be an impact on systems and data security, which will need to be addressed.

According to Knowles, the increased adoption of mobility will require businesses to develop a formal mobile strategy during 2005, if they have not already done so. “A range of new mobile technologies and standards will come to the fore in 2005, and there is a potential for confusion and unnecessary costs if businesses fail to take a standardised approach to mobility.”