Symantec 2004 Annual Report Download - page 4

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‹‹2›› SYMANTEC CORPORATION
2004 Annual Report
To Trust It,You Must Secure It
BUSINESS AND PERSONAL INFORMATION IS WORTH FAR MORE THAN THE INFRASTRUCTURE
THAT STORES IT, THE DATABASE THAT MANAGES IT, THE APPLICATION THAT TRANSFORMS IT, OR
THE NETWORK THAT TRANSPORTS ITCOMBINED. IF THAT INFORMATION IS COMPROMISED,
EVERYTHING THAT ANYONE DOES WITH IT IS SUSPECT. ENSURING THE TRUSTWORTHINESS OF
CRITICAL INFORMATION ASSETS STARTS WITH SECURITY.
Symantec is dedicated to helping individuals
and enterprises ensure the integrity of informa-
tion critical to their work, play, and daily lives.
Our company started on this quest nearly 15 years
ago when we pioneered the antivirus industry
and became the leaders in protecting home and
small business users as well as large enterprise
customers. Since then, the threat spectrum
has shifted toward much more sophisticated,
aggressive, and rapid attacks.
According to the Symantec Internet Security
Threat Report, blended threats accounted for 54
percent of the top attacks in the last six months of
2003. Computer users are also facing an average
of seven new vulnerabilities—or “holes” in soft-
ware and hardware systems—discovered every day.
In addition, the time between the identification
of a new vulnerability and the release of its
exploit is shrinking from months to days, soon
to be within minutes or even simultaneously.
Recognizing this trend, Symantec has devel-
oped broader information security solutions to
protect today’s computing environment and
ensure information integrity.
Today’s security solutions must recognize the
need for early awareness of emerging threats.They
must provide an understanding of and an ability
to address the rapid increase in vulnerabilities
with more integrated technologies to protect
critical information assets. They must prevent
attacks as well as outline a plan to respond to and
recover from their impact.
They must block new threats automatically and
provide protection updates in real-time. Above
all, they must offer the capability to manage the
entire process—either by internal administrators
or by a dedicated services organization outside
the company.
Whether it is an individual system connecting
through an Internet service provider or an office
with thousands of systems on a network, the
security of the overall information technology
infrastructure directly impacts the integrity of
the information flowing across that infrastructure.
Ensuring information integrity is about manag-
ing the security of the computing environment,
distributing software updates and patches,
maintaining a secure archive of important data
and software assets, and ensuring that the value
of the infrastructure is realized.