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Maybe they should add another course to MBA programs: E-mail Security 101.

While more than three out of four senior corporate executives said that
security is their top priority, they don't practice good security
themselves, according to a survey released Wednesday by a division of the
British magazine The Economist.

The survey of 254 executives from around the world revealed that 78 percent
worry most about network security.

But that same percentage also admitted that they've opened file attachments
received from people they don't know.

E-mail file attachments are the No. 1 way attackers use to drop malicious
payloads onto users' computers, but obviously the drumbeat of 'don't open'
hasn't reached upper management.

Other results of the survey done for AT&T include a slow-but-steady climb in
security expenditures, the belief that most attacks originate within the
company, and a fear of wireless.

On average, the firms polled devoted 9 percent of their IT budgets to
security in 2002, and 11 percent in 2003. This year, they anticipate putting
about 13 percent of the total IT budget into security.

The executives surveyed said they thought 83 percent of the attacks their
organizations had suffered stemmed from insiders, including sabotage,
espionage, and the catch-all "human error" category.

And these people are spooked by wireless. More than 80 percent believe that
their goals of giving remote workers access to networks and the data stored
on them leave their firms vulnerable or extremely vulnerable to security
breaches.

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