A recent survey conducted by McAfee revealed that 52% of small and medium sized businesses felt they were too small to be of any value to cyber criminals and that they were adequately protected by default security settings.
For example:
- 35% of SMBs are ”not concerned” about being a target for cyber crime
- 52% don’t think they are well known enough to be a target for cyber criminals
- 45% of SMBs do not think they are a valuable target for cyber criminals
- 46% do not think they could make a cyber criminal any money
- 44% of SMBs think cyber crime is an issue for larger companies
Regardless of size, viruses, hacker intrusions, spyware, and spam can lead to lost or stolen data, computer downtime, decreased productivity, and worst of all lost revenue. And just because a business is small, it does not mean they are immune to security threats.
McAfee sampled 500 IT decision makers in small and medium businesses in the US and Canada. It revealed that 25 percent of those attacked took at least one week to recover. For a small business that can be a devastating amount of time.
Apparently SMB’s think cyber attacks only happen to larger companies they do not invest a lot of time or money in IT security. The survey revealed almost half of SMBs spend just one hour per week doing proactive IT security management.
Most SMBs feel they are too small to be targeted by cyber criminals. In fact, their lack of security makes them more prone to attack. The problem most IT departments of SMBs have is the cost involved. They feel they can not afford to invest in security technologies.
There are options for SMBs ranging from outsourcing security to managed solutions tailored for their size company.
Read the entire article IT Security Challenges of SMB at the McAfee web site.