Computer hackers come in many shades -- extortion artists, corporate saboteurs, determined teenagers and legitimate IT professionals. But according to security experts at International Business Machines Corp, they have one thing in common: every office has at least one.
The corporate world, has been faced with a precarious trade-off when it comes to IT security. Damaging corporate viruses such as the Code Red worm, which continues to replicate around the Internet unchecked, have cost industry billions of dollars in lost productivity and software upgrades, experts say.
At a press event in London on Thursday, IBM introduced two veteran security specialists -- dubbed "ethical hackers" by the company -- to discuss the fragile state of Internet security, and to get its message across that upper management has to be more involved in IT defense.
"Ultimately, security is a management issue," said James Luke, information warfare specialist with IBM Global Services in London. Novice hackers, called "Script Kiddies" in Internet parlance, "can be the most dangerous", being they are among the largest population of hackers, he added. Often, they are teenagers who get their kicks out of defacing or blocking access to sites by employing virus programs downloaded from the Internet. Says James, "They know just enough to be dangerous".
News source: Reuters
