Threats to any organisation's information systems can come from a number of sources and come in a number of formats.

The sources may be:

• uninformed workers - mistakes can be made, information can be destroyed, confidential data exposed
• contract workers - not fully briefed in organisation policies and protocols leading to accidental exposure of company information 
• disgruntled employees - leaving a virus behind in your system or compromising data
• contract workers requiring access to get the job done despite opening your company to security risk
• political activist "hactivists"
• hackers looking to steal credit card numbers, contact lists or client details 
• information "brokers" trying to steal your information and on-sell it

Breaches of security may be intentional or unintentional and can come in a variety of formats. Click on the link to read more about each.

• Viruses - malicious pieces of computer code that make unauthorised changes to your PCs
• Hacking - where individuals gain or attempt to gain unauthorised access to your computer systems
• Dumping - when someone takes control of your computer's modem to place calls to high-cost premium rate or international numbers
• Port scanning - some hackers scan the Internet for computers or networks whose Internet port(s) is open and accessible
• Physical security - protection against theft of computers and unchecked access to systems and information by staff  
• Denial of service - deliberate over-loading of your web server by others in order to make your website almost unaccessible

Further information

The Internet Industry Association's security portal website provides further reading on these and other related topics: http://www.security.iia.net.au/australian_resources/security_issues/index.html

Next topic in this section >