What you don’t know can definitely hurt you. Data collected by Dimension Data, an IT services firm, shows that 73 percent of the devices running Cisco IOS software have at least one vulnerability, and the average device breaks at least 30 best practice configuration rules.

In a Business is Ready for Networks: Is Your Network Ready for Business webinar sponsored by Dimension Data, the company unveiled the findings from a Network Barometer Report based on data collected from 152 network assessments of Cisco environments.

Not surprisingly, human error is the most common cause of security issues, and of the 30 best practices configuration rules that IT organizations break most, 15 of them have to do with security.

Clearly, more work needs to be done in terms of making IOS devices easier to configure and manage. But that may take a while because Dimension Data found that 43 percent of the devices on their customer networks were close to the end of their lifecycle. That would imply that most of these devices have reached the point where they are more trouble than they are worth.

Worse yet, the Dimension Data report found that 25 percent of the assets of the 152 corporate networks were unknown devices. And anything that is unknown is obviously a potential vulnerability. Given the fact that Cisco has identified over 400 IOS vulnerabilities since 1996, there is clearly a lot to be worried about.

Rating: A clear security wake call for IT organizations