Christopher Thompson, vice president of marketing at Network Associates, told ZDNet UK he was concerned about the number of companies -- especially in the UK and the Netherlands -- that admitted to not having protection against blended threats. These exploit an . . .
Christopher Thompson, vice president of marketing at Network Associates, told ZDNet UK he was concerned about the number of companies -- especially in the UK and the Netherlands -- that admitted to not having protection against blended threats. These exploit an existing vulnerability to gain access to a system, then deploy a malicious payload.

According to the survey, 42 percent of UK companies are unprotected against blended attacks while 38 percent have no plans to protect themselves. "This means somewhere close to 70 percent probably have inadequate protection strategies against blended threats," Thompson said. "That is a dangerous place for companies to be and it tells me the risk to companies is growing, not shrinking," he said.

Thompson also said he was surprised by the general lack of awareness about security issues during a period of so much viral activity: "You would think that after Slammer, Lovsan, MSBlast, Nachi and Sobig, there would be a heightened state of awareness. We were surprised by the relative level of preparedness and the variations between different countries in Europe," he said.

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