Cyber attacks have become a ‘weapon of choice’ for many terrorist organizations. Cyber attacks can be launched from anywhere in the world that has Internet access, are often untraceable, and have the potential to wreak havoc on our financial and economic systems, defense networks, transportation systems, power infrastructure, and many other essential capabilities.

Although not widely publicized, cyber attacks occur routinely. Within the State of Texas, a major computer security incident with significant financial and operational impact is an annual event for most organizations, including state government entities. In fact, state entities reported a daily average of almost 575 security incidents in fiscal year 2009, including malicious code execution, unauthorized access to data, and service disruptions. Most of these attacks are blocked, prevented, or result in only minor disruptions.

Between January 2005 and August 2009, Texas-based organizations reported 105 incidents involving privacy data; 43 of these incidents were government-related (universities, cities and counties, and state agencies). These 105 incidents exposed over 3 million records, with the cost estimated at an all-time high of $202 per record exposed, totaling $606 million dollars to recover from the attacks. This is why it is imperative for organizations to have a “multi-layered” approach to security to ensure these attacks remain unsuccessful or only do minimal damage and disruption.