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November 8, 2007 | |
The new "Webroot State of Internet Security: Protecting Small & Medium Businesses" report is predicting a "perfect storm" in the IT security world. With companies growing and adding more remote and mobile workers, IT departments are finding it difficult to keep pace in staffing; while, at the same time, struggling with the maintaining of security for the mobile work force, the Webroot survey stated. Adding to the problem is the lack of security expertise among in-house IT staff. The study found that most SMB IT groups do not have in-house security expertise, nor do they have policies to manage employees' personal use of work computers. "Add to that the growing number and complexity of malware threats and the increasing volume of sensitive customer data that is being stored, and an environment is being created where cyber criminals and malware could have considerable impact on the global economy," stated the report in the executive summary. With more threats being reported in the wild and doing damage to businesses, the study reported that more than half of SMBs surveyed said they felt that online threats are becoming more serious. SMBs in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the U.K. were asked: "Are online threats becoming more serious?" Of the respondents, 43.3 percent in the U.S. and 39.1 percent in Canada strongly agreed that they were becoming more serious (27.7 percent in France, 54.5 percent in Germany, 36.6 percent in Japan, and 35.5 percent in the U.K.), while 44.3 percent in the U.S. and 38.8 percent in Canada said they agreed somewhat (50.8 percent in France, 30.6 percent in Germany, 39.8 percent in Japan, and 44.5 percent in the U.K.). In all six countries, survey respondents reported viruses and worms were more of a threat than spyware. However, in all of the countries except Japan, the SMBs said spyware was affecting them more than viruses. In fact, in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S., the number of SMBs that had experienced spyware infections in the past year was second only to those that experienced spam. The study also found that 95 percent of the SMB surveyed had an anti-virus solution of some sort installed. Anti-virus protection is only a piece of the overall security solution puzzle, stated Webroot in the report. According to the report, some SMBs may be under-estimating certain threats and the consequences of becoming a victim of those threats. The report pointed out that while most would agree that spam itself is more of a nuisance than a serious threat, they don't necessarily realize that spam is often a carrier for more serious threats, such as spyware, viruses and worms. Additionally, while employee errors and insider sabotage or data theft are two of their biggest threats, most SMBs don't have policies or technology in place to restrict or monitor employees' use of work computers for personal activities. The report stated that while SMBs need to establish best practice policies and educate their employees on security issues, this is only a part of the strategy to fight security threats. The other part is bringing in the right technology to put a halt to those threats. However, the report noted that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to SMB security, and it's best for SMBs to acquire specially-designed products to best address the problem.
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