Small to medium businesses around the world continue to cite budget constraints and a lack of time and personnel to research new security threats, as the main obstacles facing the implementation of their IT security roadmap, according to a new report.

The banking industry is increasingly becoming a favourite among cyber criminals, according to security vendor MailGuard, which has detected a new phishing email scam purporting to be from Westpac.

Global IT security spending ranges from approximately 1% to 13% of the IT budget, with the average spend  standing at 5.6%, but research analyst firm Gartner says the figures are potentially a misleading indicator of programme success.