Company executives has no single opinion on IT security

Last week the Ponemon Institute released a survey that polled 213 CEOs, CIOs, COOs and other senior executives. The study showed that CEOs seem to underestimate the risks of IT security threats faced by their companies. The research revealed the gap existing between CEOs and other senior managers over security issues.

48% of the CEOs polled admitted they believe hackers rarely try to access corporate data. Meantime, about 53% of other C-level executives believe that their company's data is under attack on a daily or even hourly basis. Top executives were found less aware of specific security incidents at their companies than other C-level executives, and are more confident that data breaches can be easily avoided.

While CEOs said they believe data protection efforts are vital to maintaining good customer satisfaction levels and to the company's brand image other managers said the most important role for data security efforts is to satisfy regulatory requirements.

Besides the Ponemon research also found CEOs and other top executives had different views at who is responsible for protecting corporate data. 8 of 10 respondents said that one person was responsible for data protection in their organizations, but there was a sharp difference of opinion on just who that person was. More than half of the CEO's said that CIOs are responsible for protecting data at their companies; only 24% of other senior managers felt the same way. And 85% of respondents said someone else would be held responsible for a data breach. "