MOSCOW, November 25, 16:47 /ITAR-TASS/. One in two Russian companies has suffered from information leaks at least once, says a survey conducted by the Russian innovation company MFI Soft (ALOE Systems abroad).
“Half of these companies have incurred losses as a result of insider activities. Even so, only one out of five companies uses specialized systems to protect information,” says the report released Monday.
Leaks are most frequently revealed in Moscow-based companies - 22 percent of respondents here expose insiders three to five times a year or more often. The survey also found out that companies in Ufa, the capital city of Bashkortostan, between the Volga River and the Urals, have suffered the heaviest direct losses - 56 percent of insider activities here has caused financial damage. In most cases, specialists revealed leaks via e-mail (29 percent) or portable devices (25 percent).
The research says all companies have made attempts to protect their data, yet transition to modern technologies lags behind development of technologies for information transfer, as a number of enterprises have quite archaic infrastructure and are slow to accept new technologies. Specialists in Nizhny Novgorod in the Volga Federal District have taken the most conservative approach to information security and more often than others resorted to such radical measures as bans on USB ports, restriction of access to web sites and setting quotas for traffic (91 percent of respondents in the town use these methods). Yekaterinburg, the center of the Urals Federal District, is ahead technologically, with 34 percent of companies using up-to-date specialized systems.
The report says information security in Russia is actively developing now, and specialists understand there is a need for new security measures amid swiftly developing business technologies.
The survey was based on a poll conducted among specialists in information security working for companies in Russian largest cities.
MFI Soft is a Russian innovation company developing information security software and Internet traffic filtering systems. It cooperates with large companies, federal authorities and communications providers in Russia and the CIS.