2008 Annual Google Intelligence Report on the Exploding Digital Universe

This is an update to yesterday's Library Boy post entitled New Report on the Exploding Digital Universe.

The Law Librarian Blog pointed yesterday to a Google White Paper called the 2008 Annual Google Communications Intelligence Report:

"At the end of 2007, Google conducted an annual online survey of messaging professionals. Providing insight into the major communications trends in the past year as well as the pressing issues and concerns for the coming one, this survey is the result of 575 global interviews with CEOs, CIOs, and CTOs in large, multinational enterprises as well as small organizations."

"This report summarizes the key findings of the survey, including detailed statistical analysis of the key trends in business communications in 2007 and how these trends translate into priorities for business communications
professionals in the year ahead (...)"

"Key findings:

1. The number of electronic messages increased in 2007, with spam still a huge issue for most organization
2. Executives look to IT personnel - not end-users - to ensure security and compliance
3. IT professionals face serious challenges in reaching security and compliance goals
4. Security and compliance challenges negatively impact IT productivity
5. Communications security and compliance solutions based on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model can address these productivity issues
6. In the year ahead, Google expects the number of threats to stabilize but the complexity of these threats to increase dramatically"

Coverage of the report includes:

• Google Report Highlights Spam As Top Security Issue (Information Week, March 7, 2008): "Having recently acquired messaging security company Postini, Google now finds itself in the threat-prediction business. And as is the case with just about every other computer security company, Google has research to show everyone how dangerous the online world has become (...) Google's security forecast calls for continued spam-blended virus attacks with an increasing focus on identity theft. The attacks will rely on social engineering, the report says, and will rely on messages that reference current events, like the upcoming Olympic Games and natural disasters. Further, virus attacks will target executives at specific companies whose intellectual property is deemed valuable on the black market by the hackers... These attacks will appear to come from legitimate business agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service, the Better Business Bureau, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Google said it expects such incidents will prompt organizations to eliminate live links in customer e-mail communications. Google also anticipates an increase in the deployment of outbound message monitoring systems, in the adoption of encryption, and in the use of archiving technology."
• Google says spam is huge corporate headache (CNET News.com, March 6, 2008): "Stopping spam and other malware is the top priority for the government, legal, manufacturing and, for the most part the tech industry, while healthcare, financial and retail companies are more concerned with complying with government regulations, according to online surveys of 575 CEOs, CIOs, and CTOs."