| Purpose of Programme |
In today's business world, information is increasingly digital, making it easy to misuse. Organisations are struggling to protect their confidential information and to keep pace with the increasingly stringent laws that protect consumer and employee privacy, and information security compliance is becoming therefore becoming more difficult. An organisation that experiences an information security breach suffers significant negative consequences. For example, customers and regulators may lose trust in its reliability, its reputation may suffer, and it may incur financial losses due to the cost of enhancing its information and cybersecurity capabilities. Key risk factors for information security breaches are (1) insiders leaking information, either on purpose or accidentally, and (2) outsiders intruding on the organisation's systems. This makes Internet security and information security training crucial to a culture of compliance. Although hackers frequently make the headlines, ordinary breaches of information security often start with things such as an intruder in the workspace, an unscrupulous co-worker or a stolen laptop. Preventing grave damage to an organisation's financial status and reputation requires employees to be vigilant against both internal and external risks. With respect to external risks, organisations around the globe are seeing an uptick in cybercrime, as criminals use computers to exploit the speed and anonymity of the Internet. In fact, cybercrime has been ranked as one of the top four economic crimes. Cyberattacks via botnets, malware and network intrusion have targeted computer hardware and software. Therefore, employees must take care in their electronic communications to minimise risk. Information security compliance laws demand that employees take specific precautions with certain types of personal information they handle. But even organisations that are not subject to these laws must be sure that their employees understand and follow internal policies for protecting proprietary and/or confidential data in all forms.
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