The cost of redeeming breached data is around $200 apiece in an enterprise and proactive system of security audit could prempt the possibility of data theft, president of Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) Ken Vander Wal said at a recent meeting.
?India is one of the largest countries handling large volume of outsourcing enterprise client data at its BPO and back offices. Data handled at the Indian delivery centres could be critical bank details of a customer or insurance information of a policy holder or a hospital medical record of people from countries like US and UK. These type of information happen to be easy target of cyber hackers who are always on the prowl online. Cyber attackers could inflict enormous damage if they find sensitive data being handled in a vulnerable environment. It?s advisable to have a systematic and periodic audit of the security vulnerability by the outsourcing and offshoring companies,? he said.
Wal stressed the need to build capacity in the area of information security especially churning out information security auditors in large numbers.
?I don?t have the numbers on requirement but could very much say that information security auditors would emerge as the most sought after IT professionals in the enterprise and government IT management systems. Capacity building is a big challenge as it requires inter-disciplinary domain specialisation like banking security auditors having dual knowledge of banking and IT and insurance information security auditors having the dual knowledge of insurance practice and the IT to get trained and work in the enterprise security audit,? he added.
Referring to a survey on the global status report on the Governance of Enterprise IT (GEIT) 2011, the global president of ISACA said there is still a long way to go in integrating business processes with IT in many of the organisations.
?Every body talks about cloud computing as the future of IT in enterprise, but a survey on client confidence reveals that nearly 47.2% of the clients are apprehensive about exposing of their enterprise data in the cloud ambience. Nearly 50% of them are skeptical about the privacy of data on cloud. Many of them have expressed reservations about reliability of functioning in the cloud,? he said.
Not just outsourcing companies, Certified Information System Auditor (CISA) professionals are in high demand in PSU companies, said KB Sankaran, ISACA, Chennai chapter.