Access Control
& Security Systems

Security incidents and confirmed Internet attacks rose 84 percent from the third quarter of 2002 to the first quarter of 2003, Internet Security Systems Inc.'s (ISS) Internet Risk Impact Summary Report (IRIS) reports. Overall, the number of security incidents and confirmed attacks hase risen 36.6 percent.

The increase in security incidents was coupled with a tremendous jump in overall security events (typically in the form of suspicious activities like automatic probing and scanning for vulnerabilities in computer systems) -- equaling ten times the amount of events in the fourth quarter of 2002.

Highlights of the report:

• 26 percent of security events occurred over weekends
• The top two attack categories for security events include suspicious activity accounting for 73.5 percent of total events, and unauthorized access attempts at 11 percent.
• Industry attack rates: retail -- 35 percent; financial services -- 11.5 percent; healthcare -- 9 percent; manufacturing -- 9 percent; Federal and local government -- 1 percent.

This month in Access Control

• Targeting The Customer
• Electronic Pedigrees
• One Hero Among Many
• Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• More from September's issue