CIOs not taking security breaches seriously

CIOs and internal auditors don't feel IT fraud and data privacy is a serious threat to their business despite the spate of high profile data losses and privacy breaches.

Nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of internal audit chiefs surveyed by business consultancy Ernst & Young, don't regard data privacy and IT fraud as the most important issues.

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Corporate breaches and data privacy regulation were ranked sixth in the top 10 concerns by internal audit execs and ninth by CIOs.

Erol Mustafa, head of IT internal audit services at Ernst & Young, said senior executives must recognise the importance of data privacy and should address it as part of their overall risk management and compliance strategy.

Other top concerns for CIOs over the next 12 months are major business programmes, business continuity and disaster recovery.

Separate research found that despite the economic downturn, IT security spending should not suffer.

Just 17 per cent of security professionals surveyed said they expect cuts to IT security spending in the next 12 months.

Mike Davies, director of identification and authentication services at VeriSign which conducted the research, said security and trust needs to be top of the agenda for online businesses if they want to maintain the boom in online transactions.