Security breaches growing problem for Aussie, NZ SMBs

Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 12 May 2009 11:10

Business IT - Security

According to Symantec, the leading causes of loss reported by the survey respondents were system breakdown or hardware failure (69 percent); natural or onsite disasters (49 percent); human error (47 percent); and lost or stolen mobile devices (45 percent); deliberate sabotage by employees (39 percent) as well as out–of–date security solutions (38 percent) and improper  security policies (37 percent).

Symantec also found that two-thirds of all small businesses who participated in the survey, either password protected their desktops and laptops (66 percent); implemented comprehensive security solutions (66 percent); and/or prohibited the transfer of data to USB devices (64 percent) to prevent the occurrence of another security breach.
 
“Installing desktop and server backup solutions can also help small businesses to recover their information when many of these incidents occur,” Martin maintained.

Other key findings of the Symantec study included:

 
•    Fifty-two percent of SMB respondents in Australia and New Zealand are planning to increase their IT security and storage spending in the next 12 months and 18 percent of the respondents are planning to have their IT security and storage spending budget remain the same.

•    Findings on storage showed that 88 percent of SMBs in Australia and New Zealand are concerned about backup and recovery of data, followed by disaster recovery planning and strategy (85 percent), and archiving data and emails (80 percent). 

•    While only 45 percent of the SMB respondents deploy desktop backup and recovery solutions, some three in five of these respondents perform backup on a daily or more frequent basis. The most common types of backup are disk at 69 percent and  tape at 57 percent.