Spyware? Not My Problem, Says Business

By | August 31, 2004

Maybe the problem of Internet security isn’t educating users to be more vigilant, it’s about persuading companies that there is a problem.

A survey (PDF file) released today by California-based Secure Computing Corporation found that that “only 25 percent of businesses recognized spyware as a major problem”. This despite studies that show spyware is a problem: A study by EarthLink, for example, showed that the average PC has 28 spyware programs, while a report by Dell found that spyware accounts for 12 percent of all PC desktop support calls. Today’s survey, meanwhile, reported that 70 percent of respondents saw spyware as either no problem or a minor problem.

The same with file-sharing: 90 percent of businesses saw file-sharing software as not a major problem, and a surprising 40 percent saw it as “no problem.” Same results with instant messaging and personal e-mail accounts 90 percent saw IM as no problem or a minor problem, and 80 percent felt personal e-mail accounts were no problem or a minor problem.

(I tend to see IM and personal email as not so much a security problem as a productivity one, and even then it depends what they’re doing on it. IM can be an excellent way to share information that benefits the user professionally, as can email. But there do need to be security safeguards in place.)

Anyways, it does seem pretty shocking that companies still don’t understand the dangers of spyware. Maybe when more targeted spyware brings a rival company to its knees through massive corporate data loss, espionage or draining its accounts they’ll take more notice.

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