Computer software security and data encryption are two vital areas that organizations cannot afford to ignore. Symantec has released a new survey according to which over many small and medium sized businesses are worried about the cyber attacks and data loss incidents.
According to Symantec’s 2010 Global SMB Information Protection Survey around 2000 SMBs in 28 countries were surveyed. The respondents belonged to the following two groups:
- Small Businesses (Employees 10-99)
- Medium Sized Businesses (Employees 100 -499)
Assessment of the survey results
Top Business Risks of SMBs :: Via Symantec Protection Survey Report
- Data loss and cyber security are the top two risks for organizations ranking even higher than losses due to natural calamities and terrorist attacks
- On an average over 66% of time is spent on information protection and more than $51,000 is spent annually.
- Around 75% of businesses are severely concerned about the loss of data and around 42% have actually suffered from breach incidents.
- Around 62% of organizations have suffered from the loss of mobile devices like (laptops, PDA, smartphone etc.)
- Infact, many of these devices had no password protection.
- Many SMBs suffered from cyber attacks with the average cost of an attack amounting to $188,242
A deeper look
Today the organizations have become concerned about the loss of data and are increasingly looking for ways to control the same. As expected the theft incidents involving Windows and Apple map laptops rank higher in the list of reported cases.
All the incidents involving cyber attacks and theft crimes have had led to major losses in organizations in the form of data loss, impact on productivity and strong financial implications.
The figure below explains some of the after effects of cyber attacks on small businesses.
The Symantec 2010 SMB Protection survey has several insights including detailed graphs and questions from the survey. If you are a small business owner and are currently looking to review your IT spending policies this study is definitely worth checking out.
About Alertsec
Alertsec Xpress offers computer protection software from Check Point as a fully customizable and pre-packaged data encryption software solution.
Related articles by Zemanta
- How crucial is information protection for SMBs (ciol.com)
- Symantec Survey Reveals Information Protection is the Highest IT Priority for SMBs (newswire.ca)
