SMEs Report Cybercrime as a Key Concern

A latest survey conducted by the security firm Trend Micro on May 26, 2009, which peeped into the small businesses in the UK, showed that alongwith bankruptcy (39%) and stiff competition (21%), cybercrime is one of the biggest concerns for the British SMEs (small and medium business enterprises). Cybercrime puts an excessive pressure on the IT executives of these business enterprises.

In the survey, IT decision makers of one in every five (20%) small businesses admitted that they were highly concerned about cybercrime.

Particularly, in context of electronic crime, one out of every four respondents (25%) reported that their business had suffered on account of a computer virus in the past one year starting since May 2008.

In addition to this, it was also found that the social engineering tactics used by cybercriminals flourish at uncertain point of time. Also, projections indicate towards a steep rise in the incidents of security breaches via Web 2.0 platforms such as social networking sites, and a rise in malware stealing confidential information such as login details and credit card details.

On the other hand, a similar survey "Symantec 2009 SMB Security & Storage" was conducted by security firm Symantec focusing on the SMEs in India. As per the survey, as much as 73% respondents expressed their worries about the basic security threats such as virus attacks.

Despite the concerns expressed by majority of respondents about the virus attacks, merely half of them were found to have anti-virus software in place. The survey also unveiled that 64% respondents were worried about spam while 60% were worried about phishing attacks.

James Walker, Trend Micro's Product Marketing Manager, suggested that a lot needs to be done to make the SMEs aware of the newly evolving security threats, which are destructing their IT infrastructure, affecting their budgets and repute, as reported by channelemea.com on May 26, 2009.

According to the recommendations of Trend Micro, small business enterprises must make sure that all of their employees are using effective passwords and changing them regularly in order to safeguard their assets. SMEs should also discourage their employees from downloading contents from any unreliable source and should install anti-virus software and firewalls to ensure the safety of their networks and PCs.

Related article: SANS Highlights Twenty Top Hacker Targets

» SPAMfighter News - 6/3/2009