Poor Web security is a content opportunity for technology marketers
I met with Security-as-a-Service vendor Zscaler last week to go over the highlights of its State of the Web — Q1 2010 Research Report. Among the key findings, Zscaler found that when it comes to browser security, consumers are better protected than enterprises.
Turns out more consumers are upgrading Internet Explorer than enterprises. According to Zscaler, nine-year-old IE6 still comprises more than 27% of enterprise Web traffic, while between 8-14% of consumers are using IE6. This is alarming when one considers the number of vulnerabilities the browser suffers from.
“Enterprises have the tools and technologies to push out a centralized upgrade,” says Mike Geide, Senior Security Researcher for Zscaler. “They just aren’t making it a priority.”
That’s not a surprise when you consider how busy IT staffs are these days. Unless an organization directly suffers as a result of an IE6 vulnerability, upgrading the Web browser is probably at the bottom of their to-do list.
Security technology marketers can help move that task to the top of the list by reminding network and security admins of the importance — and relative ease — of upgrading IE6 in a blog post or a short article published on your Web site. Even better: Keep the article vendor-neutral and submit it to the tech media. If your technologists are too busy to write the article, consider hiring a freelancer to ghostwrite it for you. – Crystal Bedell