Only 33 per cent of IT managers in Australia and New Zealand consider the convergence and sophistication of online threats to be the biggest threat to security systems according to research carried out for MessageLabs, by Galaxy.
The research suggested that IT managers responsible for maintaining security systems had a lower than expected awareness of the advanced threats being used by cybercriminals.
Despite this, MessageLabs found that 2.9 million spam e-mails received in March this year contained links to Storm malware: a clear example of a converged threat with spam e-mails containing hyperlinks to malicious content online.
Andrew Antal, MessageLabs' country manager for Australia and New Zealand said: "We are increasingly seeing a merging of security breaching techniques, such as spam, spyware, viruses and phishing, creating a single more advanced threat".
"As security providers become smarter at protecting against email threats, the cybercriminals are coming up with more sophisticated ways to disrupt corporate networks and access confidential information via the Internet," Antal said.
The research also revealed that the most popular Web security system was software technology, with 49 per cent of IT managers classifying this method as their main security system. Although software was the most widely used solution, it was not considered by respondents to be highly secure. Despite its widespread adoption, only 39 per cent of respondents viewed this type of technology as highly secure.
The highest rating for security instead went to managed services, as decided by 63 per cent of respondents.
Len Rust is publisher of The Rust Report.