Intranets: a Guide to their Design, Implementation and Management

Chapter 20Security

A recent survey, conducted on behalf of the Government (DTI, 2000a), highlighted the fact that 60 percent of organisations had suffered a security breach in the last two years. Sixteen percent of these lapses in security were due to viruses and software designed with malicious intent, whilst only two percent accounted for external unauthorised access. However, it is interesting to note that the information Security Breaches 2000’ report claims that these two percent of unauthorised access had the most serious impact on business.

Maybe it is less surprising then, that the report suggests that the number of security breaches increase as the size of the company increases. The reason for this increase can be reasonably assumed ...