IT Study Finds North American Organizations Facing Unnecessary Security and Financial Risks:30 June 2006
A report released today by Softchoice Corporation (TSX: SO), a leading provider of IT products and services, reveals that North American organizations are exposing themselves to significant security and financial risks because of the inability to properly manage their IT assets. High instances of missing anti-virus software, un-patched software, the prevalence of malware and poorly managed hardware lifecycles are negatively impacting the effectiveness of the average North American information worker. The report underscores how the challenge of setting, monitoring and enforcing IT policies is limiting the productivity of North American organizations and exposing them to unnecessary security risks and needless expenditures.
Collected over a two year period, the report uses inventory data from some 90,000 desktops and servers, representing over 200 organizations from across the United States and Canada. Through a process called the Softchoice TechCheck(TM), participating organizations were asked to complete a survey detailing their organization's stated IT policies, practices and standards. They then provided Softchoice with a copy of the data from their inventory solution for analysis. The two information sources were compared in order to identify the gaps between stated IT policies and practices and the realities of the desktop environment itself. The aggregated statistics formed the basis of the study.
"What we have seen is a breakdown within IT departments when it comes to verifying the healthy state of their technology assets," said Edwin Jansen, manager of the Softchoice services group responsible for the study. "Our findings show that many organizations either don't realize the value of maintaining effective IT asset management practices or they don't think they need to be worried. This is clearly not the case."
While most organizations stated that they believed themselves to be well protected from a security perspective, of the PCs surveyed in the study, 6 percent were found to be missing antivirus software entirely and 5 percent were found to be missing the most current anti-virus updates. Moreover, on average, 23 percent of PCs within organizations were found to be missing major Operating System (OS) Service Packs, a critical line of defense in protecting end users from the latest virus threats.
"There's a real gap between how secure people think they are and what protections have actually been deployed to the desktop itself," said Dean Williams, a Services Consultant for Softchoice and the author of the report. "This disconnect is translating directly into serious risks, even for organizations that have invested substantially in network and desktop security solutions."
On average, 49 percent of the PCs surveyed were found to have moderate to severe infestations of adware, spyware and other malware. While not immediately obvious to the end user, the presence of even one or two malware applications can substantially degrade a PC's performance, leading to longer computer boot up times and higher rates of system crashes, all of which affect end user productivity.
Sixty three percent of participating organizations said they were attempting to actively maintain a hardware asset lifecycle within their organizations. Of this group, 39 percent of the hardware assets inventoried were found to be beyond the organization's stated lifecycle or PC retirement schedule. PCs typically pay for themselves many times over; however, at the 36 month mark, the costs of supporting and maintaining these systems begin to increase and, by 42 months, often surpass the outlays made in the initial 12 month period.
"The popular wisdom seems to be that keeping a PC in use longer means less money spent," added Mr. Williams. "But issues such as increasing support costs, decreased resale value and even potential costs for disposal demonstrate that managing a predetermined retirement age for PCs has significant benefits."
Softchoice Services was responsible for providing the TechCheck consultations and for compiling the data used in this study. In all, survey statistics and IT inventory data from 210 organizations were utilized for the analysis. A wide variety of industries were represented in the study including healthcare, technology, insurance, financial, non-profit, education, government, and manufacturing. The organizations ranged in size from 28 to 4,452 PCs; the average number of PCs per participating organization was 456.
To read the full version of the report titled 'Unnecessary Expenditures, Unnecessary Risks: Trends and Opportunities in IT Policy Management' please visit www.softchoice.com/services/research/
About Softchoice Services
Softchoice Services provides consultative technology asset management services to help organizations of all sizes maximize their IT investments. Through a variety of platform independent reporting options, the group offers strategic guidance in the areas of licensing compliance, software harvesting, and systems management.
About Softchoice
Softchoice helps North American businesses and organizations of all sizes select, acquire and manage their software and hardware technology resources. Softchoice achieved the designation as one of Canada's 50 Best Managed Companies by Deloitte and the National Post in 2001, 2002, 2003 and qualified again for the fourth time in 2004. In 2006, the Company was named to Canadian Business Magazine's prestigious list of Best Workplaces in Canada. Headquartered in Toronto, Softchoice currently has 630 employees operating from more than 30 branches located in major cities across the U.S. and Canada. Approximately 60 percent of Softchoice's revenue is generated through its U.S. operations.
Softchoice stock is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the trading symbol "SO". The Common Shares of Softchoice are not registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and are not publicly traded in the United States.
For further information: Media Contact: Eric Gardiner, Manager Communications, PR, (416) 588-9002 Ext. 2358, eric.gardiner@softchoice.com
Source: newswire
All trademarks and copyrighted information contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
The Shield Pro 2006
Related Articles
|
