ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- A new survey released by
the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) finds a
tech savvy population pondering the preparedness of electronic
businesses to ward off cyber hackers while looking for greater
leadership in the information security area.
ITAA President Harris Miller said the survey results send a
simple message to all concerned: "Hackers need to grow up.
Companies need to wake up. Industry needs to step up,"
Miller said. "Electronic commerce is no different than any
other type of commerce. We do not tolerate willful disruptions
of business in the physical world and we will not tolerate them
in the cyber world either. With so much at stake, it's time for
law and order on the electronic frontier."
The survey comes on the heels of a series of denial of
service attacks, whereby hackers used "attack tools"
and unwitting third party computers to hinder and, in some
cases, shut down the operations of popular Internet portals and
websites. Ninety percent of respondents perceive that the
average electronic business may not be adequately prepared to
fend off such attacks, while another 55 percent seem to agree
that the problem places the "electronic economy" at
risk.
The February outages were not viewed as just one more in a
series of hacker episodes. Rather, 59 percent of respondents
appear to support the idea that denial of service attacks are a
"watershed event" for U.S. electronic commerce.
Another 65 percent indicated their intention as the result of
the attacks to be more cautious when doing business online.
Leadership - or the lack thereof - also drew strong
reactions. Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they would
"absolutely" like to see greater leadership in the
infosec area, while another 21 percent were leaning in this
direction. The vast majority of respondents see this as the job
of industry, pulling almost four times as many votes as the
White House or Congress and 2 1/2 times as many votes as law
enforcement. At the same time, however, over 90 percent of
respondents appear to want to see the criminal prosecution of
the denial of service attackers.
The new ITAA IndustryPulse poll surveyed the attitudes of
6000 individuals, readers of ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook, drawn
from the ranks of business in 15 industries. Forty-three percent
of respondents are technical professionals, while another 24
percent are managers. The web-based survey, conducted using
tools provided by NetReflector.com,
produced a total response rate of five percent. Complete survey
results are available on the ITAA website at
.
As appointed by the US Department of Commerce, ITAA serves as
co-Sector Coordinator for the Information and Communications
Sector on information security issues. In this role, ITAA
facilitates public and private sector collaboration to address
InfoSec issues including information sharing, awareness,
research and development, security workforce, and legislative
needs. ITAA's InfoSec Web site can be found at
.
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA)
provides global public policy, business networking, and national
leadership to promote the continued rapid growth of the IT
industry. ITAA consists of 400 direct and 26,000 affiliate
corporate members throughout the U.S., and a global network of
39 countries' IT associations. The Association plays the leading
role in issues of IT industry concern including taxes and
finance policy, intellectual property, telecommunications
competition, workforce and education, encryption, critical
infrastructure protection, online privacy and consumer
protection, securities litigation reform, government IT
procurement, and human resources policy. ITAA members range from
the smallest IT start-ups to industry leaders in the Internet,
software, IT services, ASP, digital content, systems
integration, telecommunications, and enterprise solution fields.
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