IT security trends in 2009

Recognized leader in the computer security, backup, storage, and systems industry Symantec recently identified four key trends that organizations should consider in securing and managing information this year. These include: 1) consumerization of IT, 2) information as the prime target for malicious attacks and the booming underground economy, 3) IT governance driving organizations to look at their risk exposures and compliance status, and 4) ongoing migration from tapes to disks dramatically transforming the way data are stored and managed.

Apart from making money and staying afloat, businesses these days have to contend with IT security threats. As experts would say, the impact of a security breach may be far greater than one would expect. Losing sensitive information directly may not only affect one's competitiveness and cash flow but also damage one's reputation -- something that would be quite hard to restore as it is to create it. It really poses a problem considering that cybercriminals have become highly sophisticated, driving a flourishing underground economy and dealing in the organized theft and transmission of sensitive business and personal data. No choice but to factor all of these in. Data protection could spell the difference between business success and failure.