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Survey: Enterprise IT Managers and Network Administrators Concerned That Employees and Former Employees Have Role in Intrusions

Boca Raton, FL and Albuquerque, NM — Oct. 11, 2011 — Is the enemy within? In this year’s seventh annual survey of 350 enterprise IT managers and network administrators commissioned by VanDyke Software® and executed by Amplitude Research®, those survey respondents who reported a successful intrusion of their user machines, office network, and/or servers cited the following primary causes or contributing factors to past intrusions:

• Lack of adequate security policies / measures (17%)
• Hacker / network attack (14%)
• Employee carelessness / negligence (12%)
• Unauthorized access by current / former employees (11%)
• Virus / malware / spyware (10%)
• Employee web usage (6%)
• Lack of software updates (6%)
• Software security flaw / bug (6%)

When the same question was asked in 2010, 6% of those who reported experiencing an intrusion had referred to unauthorized access by current / former employees.

Steve Birnkrant, CEO at Amplitude Research, said, "As if outside hackers weren't enough of a threat, this year's findings suggest that enterprise IT managers/network administrators need to carefully protect against unauthorized access by current and former employees of their own organization (11%), as well as consider employee carelessness (12%) and web usage (6%)."

Birnkrant added that survey respondents are each year noting that intrusions are no trivial matter. "It was still true in 2011, as in 2007 through 2010, that the intrusions reported often had a potentially 'high' or 'medium' financial impact and/or intruders may have obtained sensitive information," said Birnkrant.

About the Survey Methodology
The 2011 study was administered by Amplitude Research over the period September 7th to September 9th, 2011 among its nationwide technology panel. In total, 350 surveys were completed by respondents who confirmed working as an IT executive, IT manager, or network administrator for their company / organization, with a "maximum sampling margin of error" of +/- 5.2 percentage points.

To obtain an executive summary of the 2011 survey results, contact Michael Krems of Krems Public Relations at krems@kremspr.com.

About Amplitude Research, Inc.
Amplitude Research is a leading online survey company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida specializing in market research surveys and customer satisfaction studies. Amplitude offers full-service survey research including study design, questionnaire writing, survey administration, sampling, and data analysis / report writing. For more information about Amplitude Research, visit the company's website at www.amplituderesearch.com.

About VanDyke Software, Inc.
Busy IT professionals depend on VanDyke Software to deliver rock-solid, easy-to-configure software for secure remote access, secure file transfer, terminal emulation, and remote administration.  VanDyke offers a fully-supported 30-day evaluation of its products prior to purchase, providing both evaluators and customers with a higher level of service.  The company's product offerings include the SecureCRT® Secure Shell terminal emulator, the SecureFX® secure file transfer client, the VanDyke ClientPack, and the VShell® Secure Shell server.  For more information about VanDyke Software, visit the company's website at www.vandyke.com.