Article Written By: eccuni
Over the last year, cyber security professionals have been emphasizing on the importance of strengthening IT infrastructure and ensuring information security. Frequent cyber-attacks, discovery of Stuxnet worm, WikiLeaks exposure, attacks by Anonymous group, all highlighted growing threats in the cyberspace. Countries announced plans to establish cyber command to deal with security threats. However, cyber-attacks and data breach incidents have continued to dominate the news. Data breaches over the last month have aggravated information security concerns. Millions of Internet users have been affected by data breach incidents at Epsilon, Texas Comptroller office, Hyundai Capital and Sony's PlayStation network. Internet users face the risk of increased phishing attacks, loss of sensitive data, identify theft and other forms of fraud as a result of data breach incidents. Organizations must take steps to information security. Even, when security researchers make flaws public, several organizations are slow in improving security mechanisms. Lax attitude to security may pose threat to sensitive customer and business information. Cyber criminals continue to embrace social networking sites to entice users into fraudulent schemes, propagate spam and extract confidential information. Employees must be educated on best practices in IT security through training sessions, e-learning and online degree programs. Organizations must conduct regular evaluation of the network infrastructure, update software and replace outdated devices with latest security equipment. Professionals qualified in masters of security science and penetration testing may identify and weed out security vulnerabilities. The security measures must defend users against latest threats. Social networking site Facebook has revealed plans to introduce two-factor authentication. The latest security features aims to prevent unauthorized access to legitimate user accounts. The company plans to ask users to enter a code, each time they login with a new computer system or device. However, the company has not indicated the medium through which users will receive the code. Usually, many organizations send verification code through mobile phones. However, such measures do not ensure security. Recently, blackberry users and ING Poland customers were targeted with Zitmo, a variant of Zeus Trojan, which intercepts communication between legitimate company and the customer. As such, security measures must take into account latest threats. IT professionals must abreast their skills sets through online university degree programs and abreast themselves of latest security threats by attending security conferences and seminars.
This Article Has Been Published on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 and Read 240 Times