The results of a survey carries out by Maidenhead, Berkshire-based Pergamon Infotech Ltd at a conference it held on computer security have now been published and reveal that the users represented feel that viruses are more prevalent than hackers, and that the Single European Market will have a significant impact on the way that data is coded. Delegates to the conference were mainly drawn from the banking and finance industries, while roughly a third of them came from major computer suppliers in both the software and hardware markets. The record attendance at the meeting was taken by Pergamon to indicate the measure of corporate concern regarding computer security. According to the respondents of the survey, nearly a third had encountered viruses (CI No 1,214) within their organisations, while 13% admitted to being the prey of hackers. The vast majority of respondents believed that encryption techniques such as Smart Cards would play a large role in reducing security risks; but a third of those felt that senior managers did not understand the importance of encryption techniques. Two-thirds, however, did think that it would be easy to get budgetary approval for data encryption projects, but only half thought that this type of security already formed part of corporate information technology strategies. Respondents felt that security aspects to such strategies would need to be drawn up to cope with future security problems including the Single European Market, image-based databases and object-oriented methods. The fact that delegates to the conference were so tuned into security probems probably reflects their experience in the financial and banking markets where the effects of information terrorism are usually immediate, visible and costly. As one of the speakers, the independent consultant Dr Davies, warned, however, some firm in, for example, manufacturing may never know that they have been the victim of security trespass. He did caution against alarmism, saying it was relatively easy to minimise risks.
