By Will Sturgeon, 12 January 2005 17:50
NEWS IT directors struggling to shake a colossal email-related headache have taken to the scare tactics of worse case scenario to claw money from the tight grip of the finance department.
Email is the biggest security headache for 50 per cent of IT directors, according to figures from security vendor IronPort Systems. The figures also reveal that 40 per cent of IT directors have used models of lost productivity and revenue to justify increased budgets while a quarter said they have employed 'scare tactics' to the same end.
Matt Peachey, Northern European managing director at IronPort Systems, said: "Just like any bad headache, we will do anything to make it go away. It is no surprise that IT directors will resort to any means necessary to get the investment they need to get email under control, such is the scale of the problem facing them."
Of course such tactics are not necessarily anything new - the Y2K bonanza of the late 1990s saw millions of pounds of budget signed off against potentially abstract concerns.
Among the tactics previously identified for justifying security spend have been an over-reliance on unfounded fears of 'cyberterrorism' - leaving terrorism branded as a 'less credible Y2K' in some quarters.
But that's not to say email isn't an almost impossible resource to manage or that the means don't justify the ends.
Peachey added: "Email is the most visible IT issue in the majority of today's organisations. As a result IT directors are under enormous pressure to guarantee its performance."
Peachey cited examples of some companies even appointing a Chief Email Officer to manage the tool across the organisation.
And there is certainly enough work to keep the new 'CEO' busy.
According to security giant Symantec, 67 per cent of global email is now spam, a large percentage of which now comes from compromised 'zombie' machines. IronPort's figures support this, showing an average of 18 billion emails are sent each day.
During 2004 the amount of email sent by these zombies went from 30 per cent of all spam to around 70 per cent, according to IronPort.
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. the piethief
Where is the news ?
I don't see it, you might have well have written an article about the sky being blue and grass being green in colour.
Quiet news day huh?
2. James Grant
Where's the problem? We use a hosted Exchange solution from a reliable UK provider, get hardly any spam, no viruses whatsoever and pay a predicatable per user per month fee.
3. Dr Monica Seeley
Managing the email problem involves paying attention to the people, processes and technology issues. IT Directors can solve most of their problems if the take the time to educate their users properly in email management.
But this is the hard route, far easier is to throw money at the problem (in the form of more technology) in the hope that it wil go away.
A short email management course works wonders in terms of reduced volume of emails and rick of a security break!
4. Paul Beauchamp
The plight of CIO’s and their relationship with the board is well documented.
Whilst being sympathetic to the situations CIO’s find themselves in (and in most cases this is inherited and not of their own making) the position illustrated by this article can only fuel the boards thinking that IT is an expensive overhead with failing projects and cost overruns.
This thinking can be broken – if not the board may turn to outsourcing which opens up a whole new set of problems – and scaring them with unplanned surprises and costs, may do the same.
5. Dave
James, you have successfully outsourced the problem. The problem now exists for your provider rather than yourself, but this does not mean the problem has been eliminated - merely shifted onto other shoulders.
I hope this answers your question.