Companies are being urged to ensure their specialist information systems staff are equipped with the necessary skills, training and technical competence to identify and prevent potential breaches of security.

The call for greater vigilance from companies, as well as from the IS staff themselves, comes from StarForce Technologies (www.star-force.com), an international market leader in software protection against hacking and information security.

StarForce marketing director Denis Gasilin says factors such as 'education', 'awareness', 'knowledge' and 'experience' are increasingly regarded as the most important solutions to prevent security breaches. 'Technical measures' and the 'human factor' are also considered important.

The Russia-based company has published the results of a survey it compiled based on comments from information security specialists who were asked which one word best described the biggest challenge facing information security today.

The data for the survey has been sourced from an online LinkedIn group, the Information Security Community. The question which aroused StarForce interest and led to the survey was started by one of the group's members.

At the beginning of April 2012 there had been almost 2,500 responses from members of the LinkedIn Information Security Community group.

StarForce says the responses show that the professionalism and competency of staff – epitomised by their training, technical expertise, qualifications and overall capabilities - are essential factors which are expected of IS experts worldwide.

"People need to be aware of threats to be in the best position to take the appropriate steps to overcome them effectively," said Gasilin.

"While technical factors such as safe system architecture and security measures are important, StarForce believes it is a priority that all IS specialists should be trained to be technically competent to handle these threats."

"Reducing the risks by taking appropriate preventive measures is extremely important. Data provided by surveys like this enable us to track human tendencies and attitudes towards achieving higher levels of information security."

The survey results have been posted on the StarForce website - http://www.star-force.com/press/articles/index.php?news=2501
- and are collated in two graphs; one shows the most popular responses, the other links the responses into nine separate groups which reflect the information and suggestions provided.

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