(Jaikumar Vijayan, ComputerWorld) A broad spectrum of IT people, including those close to security functions, appear to have little awareness of key security issues impacting their organizations, a new survey shows.

About 22% of respondents claimed to be extensively involved in security functions, 60% claimed a limited or supporting role, and the rest said they were not involved with security at all. About 100 respondents belonged to companies with more than 10,000 employees.

What the survey showed was a surprising lack of awareness of security issues among the respondents. For instance, just 4% admitted to being fully informed about security breaches within their organizations. About 80% of those who said their organizations had suffered a data breach in the past year were unable to tell which IT components might have been impacted by the breach.[...]

Thom VanHorn, vice president of global marketing at Application Security, said the survey reveals a disturbing lack of communication about key security issues among different groups within enterprises. "It really says there isn't enough focus on security or communication across groups despite the environment we live in," VanHorn said.