FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 30, 2009

VANCOUVER, CANADA – January 30, 2009 – With privacy and security threats growing in 2009, companies that want to survive economic tough times need to make sure their network infrastructure and web applications are locked down intelligently, says PCIS President Vaclav Vincalek.

“We’ve found that when IT objectives are not aligned with business requirements, organizations are basically sabotaging themselves,” says Vincalek. “We’ve seen IT people implementing policies for the sake of security to such a high degree that business operations were compromised. As a result, employees were devising work-arounds that introduce even greater security risks so that they can do their jobs. The people in charge of security need to understand the business consequences of the policies they put in place.”

Vincalek will be elaborating on this topic in his presentation, “States of Denial: Overcoming Management Myths To Improve IT Security” at the 10th Annual Privacy and Security Conference in Victoria next week to industry and government leaders.

In a tough economic climate, it’s even more necessary for organizations to put in place effective network and web security that coincides with business goals. “You want strong security that doesn’t cripple your business,” Vincalek adds. “At the same time, you don’t want to relax your security processes to improve business flexibility to the point that you open yourself up to hackers working for organized crime and even foreign governments.” The trick is to come up with a balance that works for your business.

PCIS conducted its own research for its upcoming presentation through real-life experience. “We provide IT consulting and security solutions for a lot of small-to-medium sized businesses,” Vincalek notes. “If a security breach forced a closure of their operations for a weeks or just days, they’d be hurting, and possibly laying off people. Just think, when customer retention is key to business survival, would your company be able to risk reputation due to a security breach?”

“In tough times, businesses understand that security is a necessity, not a want. For instance, maybe you can put off renewing the license for your business applications, if you want to cut costs. But you’re just asking for trouble if you try to avoid patching your network or securing your applications.”

PCIS will present at the 10th Annual Privacy and Security Conference at the Victoria Conference Centre on Feb. 4 at 1:15 pm. The conference theme is "Life in a Digital Fishbowl - A Struggle for Survival or a Sea of Opportunity?" For more information, visit http://www.boonbox.net/press/BM-pcis-10th-annual-privacy-security-reboot-mm.htm

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