By ADuch -

Many companies in 2011 have been hit by high level attacks and breaches by malicious hackers. How are these organizations being targeted, and how are hackers penetrating their networks? It all starts with the lack of security awareness by individuals at a company.

In a recent article by Computer Weekly, Lieberman Software conducted a survey with 300 international IT professionals. The survey showed that:

• 50% of the respondents have worked for a company that have not changed their privileged passwords
• 50% of the respondents have worked for a company that have had its computer networks breached
• 42% of the respondents were aware that an IT staff was sharing passwords with others and giving them access to several systems
• 26% of the respondents knew of an IT staff abusing a privileged login to gain access to sensitive data

These results show that senior management need to enforce and pay attention to basic IT security practices. This means to constantly change passwords when you can, and to limit and/or lock down access to any systems that carry sensitive data. These little things will increase security and help keep hackers away.

Read the full story at ComputerWeekly.com and get more stats from the survey.

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/10/18/248187/Password-chaos-linked-to-network-breaches-survey-finds.htm

By Erik Small -

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