SMB Employees at Risk: NETGEAR Exploration

A new research by NETGEAR turned to be a curtain raiser for small and medium businesses (SMBs) in UK as these companies are prone to online malware.

Target audience of the research comprised of Business Owners and IT Managers in SMBs employing 50-250 staff.

The research revealed that British SMBs are at higher risks as they utilize social media as a major business tool and while remaining unaware about the security issues present in such networking sites.

About 47% of the subjects polled social media as their mostly sorted medium for communicating with their customers, whereas 59% of the respondents claimed Facebook and Twitter as their most sought out tool for communicating with their colleagues.

However, 29% of SMBs have taken initiative in making their staffs aware of risks associated with Web 2.0 and ways to avoid malware. Also, 42% SMBs have a policy that encourages employees towards updating their security settings regularly.

Most of the SMBs are also unsuccessful to put into order any formal specifications, which require that staff renew their security settings regularly. The research report also revealed that only 34% businesses have installed a system to filter content for ensuring that PCs are at least not infected by malware.

According to Jason Leung, Senior Product Marketing Manager for SMB Network Security at NETGEAR, though social media tools are quite fun they do not ensure complete security, reports scmagazineuk on July 11, 2011.

Leung further claimed that employees accessing social media pose greater threats especially when they click on links from their friends or colleagues, whom they entrust completely. SMBs are required to educate their employees on threats posed by malware through social media and ensure sufficient security for their organizations.

From the perspectives of SMBs, online security measures are a waste of time and money. These kinds of businesses are rather concerned about other major priority issues rather then investing on such security issues.

In fact, SMBs should concentrate more towards providing online security to their businesses and ensure proper education to the workforce towards guaranteeing safe and secured productivity and IP of the business.

Related article: Samba Vulnerability Could Allow Harmful Code Injection

» SPAMfighter News - 7/20/2011