Dependence on information technology (IT) continues to grow with most businesses believing they have sensitive or critical information and nearly 100 percent having either websites, sending or receiving e-mail across the Internet or providing staff with web access.
With Websites increasingly able to accept transactions on-line, the risk of IT security breaches has significantly increased particularly from the external threat from hackers and viruses. As a result of the ever changing business environment and the number of security incidents reported in the press, information security has never been a higher priority at board level.
It is against this background that Bighat Media is organizing the E-LERT II Seminar at the Fairmont Dubai from September 22-23. “Senior management is slowly beginning to believe that information security is a high priority and as a result budgets allocated to IT security are increasing. However relatively few businesses are translating this priority into effective action,” said Managing Director of Bighat Media, Trevor Punt.
“A recent survey said that a reasonable benchmark is that an average of three to five percent of an organizations total IT budget should be spent on IT security rising to an average of 10 percent in high risk sectors such as financial services. Worryingly, United Arab Emirate (UAE) businesses are not spending any where near that benchmark” Punt commented. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
