May 14, 2009

Information security has always been a top priority among enterprises the world over. While some industries, such as the financial services sector, may be under greater pressure to protect their databases, almost all firms across all industries today understand the need to protect their information assets.

Local enterprises, like their counterparts in other countries, recognize the value of information security and no longer have doubts about the role IT plays in data protection.

In a roundtable discussion with the Computerworld Philippines editorial team, five local IT executives from various industries talked about the current security threats they constantly battle with in their respective businesses, their strategies in coping with the continuously evolving security landscape, and the technologies they have – as well as those they plan to – put in place to address these security challenges.

“Cyber-crime related incidents nowadays really lean more toward getting banking-related information. Hacking is no longer just a fun thing to do; more of it is being done for profit and financial gains,” said Constantino Yap, assistant vice president, special projects unit, information technology division, Allied Bank.

Carmelo Cabreros, corporate IT director at Robinsons Land Corporation, highlighted an increasingly disturbing problem among enterprises today – the growing number of security threats coming from within the enterprise. “Over the years, companies have been focusing on security initiatives to protect themselves from external threats; today the challenge includes threats from internal sources as well,” he noted.

“Our challenge basically is to secure all components of the infrastructure to make sure that our operation runs smoothly and we avoid downtime. We do invest a lot on the whole security product range – anti-spam, anti-virus, etc. We also implement security policies and make sure that our employees and dealers are well-informed about these threats,” said Edu Valerio, manager, technical support, Mitsubishi Motors Philippines Corporation.

For his part, Ulysees Naguit, IT director at LBC Express Inc, said having security tools is not enough to ensure that a company’s information assets are secure. “At the end of the day, you may have all these security systems in place, but if your users are not informed about the role they play in this entire setup, then even the best technologies will not work.”

Meanwhile, Dennis Samson, IT manager at Sta. Lucia East Commercial Corporation pointed out that a company’s own growth, if not managed properly, could pose a threat to its own information security. “The growing requirements of the business and internal users which fuel our growth sometimes tend to create more vulnerabilities which we will, of course, have to address.”

Clarence Phua, country manager of security firm, Sophos Plc, was also present at Computerworld Philippines’ 3rd CIO Roundtable for the year, to provide insights and updates on the current security trends and evolving threats

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• Mitigating the Risks
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