Australian businesses face invisible security threats during 2010 due to uncertainty created by fallout from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).

During 2009, organisations took their eyes off the security ball, with security becoming a discretionary spend. Organisations put the brakes on their security spending and then they took them off again, which made for a very jerky ride.

This caused significant disruption in staff, strategy and operational security activities. As a result, there’s a lot of risk bubbling under the surface that people are not aware of.

There’s widespread concern about a W-shaped economic downturn, so people are holding their collective breaths for a second wave of bad news.

Uncertainty breeds insecurity. Although the worst of the GFC may have passed, people are still unsure of their job security, so they might hang on to a bit of information in case it comes in useful in the future. That presents a serious, albeit unrealised, threat to any organisation.

There’s more reason for concern now as a lot of the risk has become invisible. People think ‘we know about that’, but all the vulnerabilities are still there. The problem is the bad guys did not back off due to the GFC.

Jo Stewart-Rattray is Director of Information Security at RSM Bird Cameron. This column was reproduced from Voice & Data http://www.voiceanddata.com.au/articles/38070-Predictions-for-2-1-