1. Introduction

There are several security issues involved in using the Internet for conducting corporate business, as well as issues involved in protecting individuals for misuses of their personal information.

This article will discuss some of those.

2. Corporate nightmares - viruses, hackers and breakdowns

Corporate leaders in Norway have a strong fear of computer viruses and hackers. A recent study shows that while the number one fear is losing core employees, fear of hackers, identity theft and breakdowns are next on the list.

The Norwegian Marketing Institute (MMI) asked 636 corporate leaders about their worst fears concerning their enterprise. Many of them are aware of the dangers and vulnerabilities connected with the increasing dependence on Internet, and the leaders’ worst fears are viruses and hackers that are able to run the company out of business. The threat of identity theft (phishing) and theft of intellectual rights are also worrying the corporate leaders.

The survey also reveals a lack of security knowledge in many of the corporations. Only 44 % of the corporations are checking the IT -logs regularly. 25 % of the leaders fear that a crisis will occur if the IT system breaks down and 15 % have already experienced such a crisis. 7% of the corporations have experience hacking attacks and sees this as the scariest threat in the nearest future.

The fear of internal hackers and illegal action performed by former employees are also apparent. As many as 46 % of the leaders wants to perform a security check on all employees before they are hired in order to prevent internal stealing of sensitive information and/or other forms of espionage performed by insiders. The worst fear however concerning employees is the fear of losing core persons that possess valuable information about the company.

3. Storing personal information - a question of responsibility

Protecting personal information is a complicated and delicate task. Companies and large organizations are getting increasingly dependant on electronic storage and Internet communication. This makes it easier to manage and supervise information but it also leaves everybody more vulnerable for exploitation and fraud.

When so much information and commerce are dependant on online systems, and when only a small fragment of sensitive data can be used to perform heavy fraud, the world is undoubtably getting more insecure. The dilemma of making information more accessible and easier to handle versus the safety of individuals is more apparent than ever before.

Mike Cibbons, a security consultant in Unisys and former chief of cyber crime investigations in FBI, emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach to data security. - We need more secure online access methods, robust customer authentication, dedicated data security staff and we need to improve the way large amounts of consumer data are stored or moved, he says to e.commercealert.

Even though protection of information can be costly it is definitely worth the expenses. Every year as many as 10 million consumers are falling victim to some form of identity theft.

In New York Senator Charles E. Schumer has proposed the creation of an Office of Identity Theft that would establish a minimum security standard for handling sensitive personal data. He suggests that failure to meet such “reasonable standards" should result in fines for the responsible companies.

Intensive lobbying will probably put this proposition dead for a while, but it definitively shows that there is a need for rules and standards concerning the protection of sensitive data. And the question of whether companies without proper protection should be sanctioned will probably be asked again several times in the future...