The President's Critical Infrastructure Board working in conjunction with newly founded Home Land Security is anticipating escalated occurrences of security threats, breaches and viruses nationwide to corporate networking systems in the coming months ahead. Moreover, this group has announced plans to implement liability laws, policies, best practices and standards with intrinsic similarities the government gained during its Y2K experiences.

In recent months, the frequency, proliferation, payload sophistication and damage caused by computer viruses is rising. There have been multitudes of entire network systems down for days at a time. Unknowingly, Internet users visiting infected web pages can contract viruses and spread throughout an entire network of computers in a matter minutes, completely disabling computer workstations or rendering them permanently unusable. From innocent home computer users, to entire networks of servers and workstations are currently broadcasting viruses to others by unknowingly becoming hosts that probe the Internet seeking out other vulnerable systems and infecting victims with damaging payloads that has already cost billions. Therefore a heighten emphasis on security should be maintained with measured importance.

Survivability and Accountability

Increasingly, information interchange is becoming a part of business survivability, but higher information interchange traffic translates into; higher exposure, higher vulnerability, higher risk of data lost, higher probability of damaging other systems, higher risk of liability. To counter these threats will require an assessment, then follow-up with an action plan of polices and procedures that will not only help mitigate these threats, but provide documented evidence that preventative steps were implemented to protect the information and proliferation of damaging threats to others.