Poland - a hacker's heaven?
Poland is a prime hunting ground for hackers and electronic thieves as businesses embrace the possibilities opened up by electronic trading and ignore the perils of poor security.
Among the best protected businesses are the country's banks, which employ specialists to protect their networks and monitor industry advances.
However, the growing wave of medium and small concerns frequently place a much lower emphasis on IT security or even fail to recognize it as an issue at all.
Hacking hurdles
One of the world's most famous ex-hackers, Kevin Mitnick, who was jailed for a string of offences that include breaking into Pentagon computers and taking control of New York's telephone system, says Polish companies should start by ensuring protocols are followed.
"Smaller and medium sized businesses sometimes do not allocate enough money in their security budget to defend against the threat. The next step for many companies is the introduction of wireless networks and that is just like leaving a wide open door to your house," advises Mitnick, who now runs his own internet security consultancy.
Post-it passwords
"The most frequent security breaches involve employees. You can see it time and time again: employees will write down their password on a post-it note and stick it on the side of their computer. This is because employees are told to make their passwords complex and they are under pressure to get their work done so they create shortcuts by skipping a few steps that involve security protocol.
"The way to address this is to think what motivates employees and devise ways of encouraging them to follow protocols. You can have all the security measures in the world but some employees, whether temporary, contract or full time, will ignore them."
Mitnick says companies must take an 'all-round' view of security, ensuring that technological steps run in tandem with physical security.
"The other way that hackers are breaking into systems from a technological point of view is by exploiting application type vulnerabilities. Imagine a junior programmer gets a job designing an element of a website and they have no notion of secure code practices. Because of this there are many vulnerable e-commerce sites on the internet," he says.
Weak workers
Mitnick says some of the most determined information thie-ves will penetrate a company by physical means - tricking their way into a building to plug a wireless transmitter into the system that they can use to eavesdrop at their leisure. He warns that in this case security personnel are just important to IT security as firewalling against hackers.
Fully loaded
Cisco Systems is one of the leading vendors of equipment and software for IT networks. The company's technology and marketing manager Vincent Bieri suggests the best solution to security lies in the basic construction of an integrated system. Bieri draws an analogy with automobile construction: "Fifteen years ago cars lacked security. Now they've got ABS, theft-proof locks, driving systems, air bags and alarms. To put that on a car nowadays would be both expensive and difficult. You buy a car with these options in place and it's the same with networks: you buy them with security embedded."
Weighing up the risk
The IT consulting and intelligence company IDC has been monitoring developments in Poland. The managing director of IDC's Poland operation, Andrzej Jarosz, puts IT security into perspective. "In the business environment security is always a function of cost; the more you stand to lose then the more you invest. A good example of this the banking sector in Poland where banks risk losing a lot of money. This is the sector in Poland that has spent the most on security."
Jarosz concludes, however, that those companies which fail to heed the warnings do so at their own peril. "There is a problem with smaller companies because they don't consider security as a prime issue. This is partly because smaller companies in Poland don't put much trust in IT anyway - but the more companies start conducting transactions on the net then the more at risk they become."
Among the best protected businesses are the country's banks, which employ specialists to protect their networks and monitor industry advances.
However, the growing wave of medium and small concerns frequently place a much lower emphasis on IT security or even fail to recognize it as an issue at all.
Hacking hurdles
One of the world's most famous ex-hackers, Kevin Mitnick, who was jailed for a string of offences that include breaking into Pentagon computers and taking control of New York's telephone system, says Polish companies should start by ensuring protocols are followed.
"Smaller and medium sized businesses sometimes do not allocate enough money in their security budget to defend against the threat. The next step for many companies is the introduction of wireless networks and that is just like leaving a wide open door to your house," advises Mitnick, who now runs his own internet security consultancy.
Post-it passwords
"The most frequent security breaches involve employees. You can see it time and time again: employees will write down their password on a post-it note and stick it on the side of their computer. This is because employees are told to make their passwords complex and they are under pressure to get their work done so they create shortcuts by skipping a few steps that involve security protocol.
"The way to address this is to think what motivates employees and devise ways of encouraging them to follow protocols. You can have all the security measures in the world but some employees, whether temporary, contract or full time, will ignore them."
Mitnick says companies must take an 'all-round' view of security, ensuring that technological steps run in tandem with physical security.
"The other way that hackers are breaking into systems from a technological point of view is by exploiting application type vulnerabilities. Imagine a junior programmer gets a job designing an element of a website and they have no notion of secure code practices. Because of this there are many vulnerable e-commerce sites on the internet," he says.
Weak workers
Mitnick says some of the most determined information thie-ves will penetrate a company by physical means - tricking their way into a building to plug a wireless transmitter into the system that they can use to eavesdrop at their leisure. He warns that in this case security personnel are just important to IT security as firewalling against hackers.
Fully loaded
Cisco Systems is one of the leading vendors of equipment and software for IT networks. The company's technology and marketing manager Vincent Bieri suggests the best solution to security lies in the basic construction of an integrated system. Bieri draws an analogy with automobile construction: "Fifteen years ago cars lacked security. Now they've got ABS, theft-proof locks, driving systems, air bags and alarms. To put that on a car nowadays would be both expensive and difficult. You buy a car with these options in place and it's the same with networks: you buy them with security embedded."
Weighing up the risk
The IT consulting and intelligence company IDC has been monitoring developments in Poland. The managing director of IDC's Poland operation, Andrzej Jarosz, puts IT security into perspective. "In the business environment security is always a function of cost; the more you stand to lose then the more you invest. A good example of this the banking sector in Poland where banks risk losing a lot of money. This is the sector in Poland that has spent the most on security."
Jarosz concludes, however, that those companies which fail to heed the warnings do so at their own peril. "There is a problem with smaller companies because they don't consider security as a prime issue. This is partly because smaller companies in Poland don't put much trust in IT anyway - but the more companies start conducting transactions on the net then the more at risk they become."
