Australia stung by insular IT mentality

Australia needs to wake up from its "cul-de-sac" mentality and recognise the significance of information to the long-term profitability of the country's enterprises.

Looking at hack attacks worldwide, Simon Perry, vice president, security strategist for Computer Associates said when comparing the percentage of worldwide domain names registered by Australian companies with the percentage of attacks waged against Australian companies, "Australia is at or above North America".

"North America has an electronic footprint of 60 per cent of the [worldwide] bandwidth; 42 per cent of hack attacks are targeted at US-based companies," he said"For the Asia Pacific region, including Australia, the footprint is about 10 per cent, but these companies get about 25 per cent of all hack attacks."

Perry said it is not that Australian companies are behind in their adoption of security technology or our employees are any more disgruntled than other countries; it is the mindset that "no one will attack us" that is actually hurting us.

"Australian companies, as are many companies around the world, victims of insider attacks and random attacks."

Australia's regional office scenario also does not appear to be elevating our security focus. Perry said in an "idealistic world", head office security policies would be pushed down globally, but that is more often than not, not the case.

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