Among emerging threats for 2009 for the IT industry, cybercrime and outsourcing are leading concerns, a new survey reveals.

The survey showed that emergence of consumer technology in tandem with social networking Web 2.0 technologies such as Yahoo's and Google's consumer health networks present a security battle, particularly when considering the increasing number of patient records accessible exposed to the evolving sophistication of cyber criminals.

Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder, Ponemon Institute, the firm that conducted the survey, stated, "In the next year or two, these challenges will increase in both the breadth and depth of threats - the companies we surveyed made this very clear. The key for IT operations and IT security is to find the common ground necessary to better-wage this security battle together."
Based on interviews with IT experts in operations and information security key findings show risks as:

* Outsourcing to third parties - as companies seek to reduce costs, sensitive information becomes exposed
* Cybercrime - data breaches cause loss and potential misuse of data
* Mobility - data security diminishes as individuals access data remotely
* Emerging technologies - merging of business and consumer technologies clouds issues as file sharing and virtualization increase

Lumension Security commissioned the survey. Pat Clawson, CEO & Chairman, reports, "What became clear, in conducting this research, is that while these threats will only increase over time, the gap between these distinct groups is starting to close. This is a great step forward in waging the data security battle - the less siloed and more collaborative IT security and operations groups operate, the more successful they will be in protecting their company's [data]."

Lumension Security, a worldwide security management company, has not released information on its survey methodology, though it is offering a webinar and download of survey results. For further details on the survey see http://www.lumension.com