A Comparison of Information Security Surveys

Running Head: A COMPARISON OF INFORMATION SECURITY SURVEYS

A Comparison of Information Security Surveys Conducted by the Computer

Security Institute and Ernst & Young of Public and Private Sector Organizations

University of Maryland University College

A Comparison of Information Security Surveys Conducted by the Computer

Security Institute and Ernst & Young of Public and Private Sector Organizations

Emerging technologies utilized for electronic commerce are offering organizations the opportunity to reexamine strategic business models, processes, and relationships (Turban et al., 2008). The business environment is quickly changing as a result of new technological innovations and organizations are gradually seeing the benefits of participating in electronic commerce through increased growth and profits (Turban et al., 2008). Organizations engaging in electronic commerce benefit greatly from this method of doing business but are also extremely vulnerable to internal and external attacks focused on compromising their information systems and confidential data (Yuan, 2005). According to a survey conducted in 2005 by Mazu Network, a large percentage of Information Technology (IT) professionals indicated that internal security breaches led to issues with service and system interruptions, data loss and intellectual property theft (Yuan, 2005). These problems still exist today; however, the true impact of internal and external online security breaches is unknown as only a small percentage of organizations actually report intrusions of their information systems to law enforcement (Turban et al., 2008).

In order to improve awareness and determine the true financial and operational impact of these internal and external information systems security breaches on organizations, surveys are conducted annually by professional membership and government organizations as well as consulting firms (Turban et al., 2008). Therefore, this paper will...