Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 12 May 2009 11:10
Business IT -
Security
Page 1 of 3
With the spread of malicious code activity growing at a record pace globally last year, Australian and New Zealand small to medium sized business copped their share of problems, with many of them reporting security breaches and loss of data.
Releasing the findings of its 2009 global SMB
security and storage survey today, Symantec revealed that more than
half (58 percent) of SMB respondents in Australia and New Zealand
experienced security breaches, where information has been subject to
unauthorised access, and often where the data is lost, stolen, or
hacked.
Symantec says that malicious code activity continued to grow at a
record pace throughout 2008, primarily targeting confidential
information of computer users. As a response to this record growth,
Symantec says it created more than 1.6 million new malicious code
signatures, equating to more than 60 percent of the total malicious
code signatures ever created by the firm.
The report also noted that 90 percent of all threats detected by
Symantec during 2008 attempted to steal confidential information.
Craig Scroggie, vice president and managing director, Pacific region
for Symantec, warned that small businesses in Australia and New Zealand
needed protection from a rapidly expanding and increasingly complex
range of internal and external security threats.
“The threat landscape continues to shift at an alarming pace and small
businesses need to ensure they can confidently and simply manage these
challenges. Through the adoption of security technology and education
of security policies and processes, small businesses can reduce the
number of security breaches, minimising the impact to their bottom
line, brand and reputation.”
According to Scroggie, the importance of protecting email, information,
networks, servers and desktops rated as the top goals for the survey
respondents (mentioned as somewhat/extremely important by at least 76
percent). Viruses (68 percent) were identified as the top security
worry for the survey respondents, says Scroggie, and more than 60
percent were somewhat or extremely concerned about phishing scams,
spam, data breaches and the loss of confidential information via email
or USB devices.
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