More business falling victim to attacks

It's business as usual for US military's social media sites despite the fact that hackers broke into the Pentagon's Twitter account.

It's business as usual for US military's social media sites despite the fact that hackers broke into the Pentagon's Twitter account.

Published Mar 24, 2014

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Johannesburg - The 2014 IDC South Africa CIO Summit is set to take place from March 25 - 26, 2014, at the Maslow Hotel in Johannesburg.

With this year’s theme centring on ‘Being a CIO in the New Business World of Tech and Transformation’, Kaspersky Lab says that today the role of the CIO is more complex than ever and they are encouraged to participate in this much needed debate.

Dirk Kollberg, Senior Virus Analyst, Global Research & Analysis Team at Kaspersky Lab, will be taking part in a panel discussion as part of the agenda for the day at the event, that will look at ‘Technologies that Support Opportunities for a Competitive Advantage’, where he will talk to corporate cybersecurity. Kaspersky Lab representatives will also be available at the summit, at stand 9, to discuss the company’s latest award-winning solutions and help CIOs and IT security professionals proactively counter the surge in targeted attacks in the region.

Says Dirk Kollberg: “The role of the CIO remains a complex one, especially considering the rate at which technology is evolving. In fact, today, businesses of all sizes have to deal with an ever-growing number of Internet-enabled devices, with the majority of ‘endpoints’ connected to the Internet somehow, and a growing number of threats as well.”

In fact, in 2012, Kaspersky Lab detected 200 000 new malicious files that appeared every day, while in 2013 the figure increased to 315 000 – which is certainly alarming.

A recent Global IT Security Risks survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab in partnership with B2B International demonstrated that a significant number of businesses have already become victims to cybercrime, including targeted attacks, events of corporate espionage and loss of sensitive intellectual property. 93 percent of the companies surveyed in South Africa had at least one external IT security incident in the past 12 months, such as viruses and other malware, spam, phishing, network intrusion, etc. And 85 percent reported internal incidents in the past 12 months, which included vulnerabilities, human error (employee mistakes), the loss or theft of mobile devices.

“As a result of this, locally, CIOs need to place a stronger emphasis on effective end-to-end IT security, including, educating employees and IT security staff and implementing the newest solutions and technologies to protect a company’s business – if they are going to navigate the new world of technology successfully.”

For more information on the IDC event, please visit: http://idc-cema.com/eng/events/56513-idc-south-africa-cio-summit-2014/7-overview

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