Arthur Andersen, the world`s largest professional services provider, has teamed up with Intekom to provide value-added access to the Internet with security assurance of international standards.
Paulo Froes, managing director of Intekom, said he was delighted with the agreement with Arthur Andersen`s Computer Risk Management (CRM)division, as it meant that the two organisations could offer their respective expertise to the benefit of their clients.
"Security of information is of prime importance to our clients. A recent survey among 200 top corporate executives has shown that security is the third most important priority".
"To date, approximately 80% of corporates are connected to the Internet and its usage as a business tool is rapidly expanding. The protection of a company`s information-the heart of an organisation-therefore becomes a key issue," said Froes.
Arthur Anderson`s Computer Risk Management (CRM) division offers Internet security identification and analyses, the development of a security policy, evaluation of measures and firewall solutions and penetration studies to review the effectiveness of Internet-related controls.
Johan Roets, partner in-charge of Arthur Andersen`s CRM practise in South Africa said a survey among 350 Internet-enabled corporations in South Africa found that 31% relied on the Internet service provider for network security. It also found 39% used the Internet to transmit confidential corporate data, 47% had not performed any risk assessment, and 69% had no security policy in place Only 3% said they had detected hackers trying to break into their systems, but others declined to reply, suggesting security breaches could be more common than they cared to admit.
"Each year has seen a dramatic increase in detected unauthorised access attempts to Internet hosts. This is due to the increase in the number of hosts, the corresponding increase in intruder activity and, increased awareness of security issues and controls or the lack thereof.
"Clients want a total solution installed with all networking and hardware in place. They don`t want the hassle of dealing with a number of organisations to deliver components of that solution. We can help Intekom deliver a world-class security blanket around their services".
"Many organisations` information security programmes have not kept pace with new technologies, especially the Internet. We have access to unlimited global resources, which we use to our client`s advantage. An example is our Global Best Practices database which we use to benchmark organisation`s information systems controls against similar operations world-wide," said Roets.
Both partners have also formed an alliance with Citadel, which supplies firewalls to prevent unauthorised access to a network.
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