In a recent article by the BBC the issue of cyber-attacks was highlighted as a major danger to small companies and indeed a Threat Awareness Survey stated that over 50% of respondents said that they didn’t feel in danger because they were a “small company”! They were under the misapprehension that only large enterprises should worry about security threats.
Unbelievably 3 out of 5 of the small businesses said they didn’t use anti-virus technology on all their desktops, while two out of three failed to secure machines used for online banking.
In a further study by Symantec, research shows that since the beginning of 2010, 40% of all targeted attacks have been directed at small and medium-sized businesses, compared to only 28% directed at large companies.
So…. make sure you:
Patch machines regularly with Microsoft updates
Use a good anti-virus on ALL your machines
Work behind a firewall
Use strong passwords
Use encryption
Check your backups
Make it difficult – a thief will break into an easy target house so make sure you don’t make your livelihood an easy target business!