Legal worries add to IT bosses' burden

Security is the number one concern for enterprise networks as organisations are faced with ever increasing compliance demands.

Businesses are worried about both potential intrusion and the integrity of data as it moves over the network, according to an executive from HP's networking business, ProCurve.

Wenceslao Lada, general manager of ProCurve for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said: "The biggest asset for companies is information. Information is data."

Previously CIOs and IT managers have made purchases based only on the networking equipment's acquisition price. But now Lada said his customers are evaluating the total cost of their network - including potential security problems.

Hosting data in one location and making it available to several other locations over a network "creates security problems they never contemplated", Lada said.

He attributes this change to the increasing number of regulations businesses must comply with, which include requirements such as storing data for years and ensuring its confidentiality.

Lada said: "It's not just about data loss for company, it's about legal ramifications too. IT managers can be put in jail for breaking the law [if data is not properly secured]."

Despite worries about deploying voice over IP across corporate networks, Lada said the technology isn't a cause for particular concern. IT managers must be aware of the risks but VoIP doesn't make a network more vulnerable than any other network application, he explained.

He said: "VoIP is just another application."