Computer Associates recently conducted a poll of 642 US enterprise associates. Some of the results of the study, at least what they have reported:

54% loss of productivity
25% public embarrassment
20% losses in revenue (most likely related to insurance concerns)

It is sad to note that 38% of those who have reported about the IT security breaches have been internal. In a way, it is ironic as there are preparations to prevent or combat breaches from external sources.

Other important information from the poll deal with issues of improving security in the enterprise. It is critical to formulate policies and procedures that would enhance the security or else, they will not achieve their desired results which include increase in productivity.

From the study it is apparent that even though they admit that there is an increase in security failures, they are also doing the necessary steps in order to prevent them. Aside from that they are also are concerned with the need to educate everyone about practices in IT security. Businesses concerned with finance are noted in the study as well.

The steps in making sure that everything is secure is not just about your computer and making sure that everything is intact and that your network is not vulnerable to attacks. It is also affected by the way you view it. Educating the users is still one important aspect that has to be dealt with. Maybe there is something about the corporate culture that affects the way everyone views IT security. It is something that each company would have to study individually if that is the case.

Studying security breaches in the enterprise is good. It opens up the eyes of the decision makers as to what still needs to be done. Without such studies, breaches could still go on and nobody would do anything about them and that is terrible for the enterprise.