Is Your Information At Risk? Information Technology Leaders' Thoughts About The Impact Of Cybercrime On Competitive Advantage

Abstract

In the global market, communication, information, and information exchange between businesses and consumers are essential for a business to grow.  As the need for information and information exchange increase, companies become more dependent on the information and the information technology systems, which are used to capture, process, store, distribute and use information.  Information and information systems become a source of competitive advantage for twenty first century learning organizations.  Thus, information should be viewed as a corporate asset like materials, money and personnel and as such needs to be managed and protected as any other corporate asset.   

This paper provides the results of a qualitative study conducted with senior information technology officers and organizational leaders from seven international firms about cybercrime and information terrorism.  More specifically, the study attempts to answer if a company’s competitive advantage is at risk due to cyberterrorism and computer crime.  Based on the views of these information technology leaders, the study also attempts to determine if the implementation of an IT security strategy can protect against cyberterrorism crime threats while offering a proposed model as a recommendation for organizational leaders.