SME surfers under threat

Small business employees spend hours surfing, yet pay little attention to any security threats

Employees within SMEs freely surf the web for an average of two and a half hours a week, however less than half of SME IT managers admit to using web filtering software and security.

According to research from vendor Websense, 66 per cent of SME employees trust their company has the correct security measures in place, without inquiring about them. Thirty one per cent of employees have used online credit card details,
at work without having questioned the IT managers about identity theft.

Thirty one per cent of employees disclosed how they could not live without gaining access to certain web sites, with a quarter surfing peer-to-peer sites and 17 per cent viewing free software downloads. These particular types of web sites are, typically, known for being high security risks.

Chairman of Will Hill Group, Ian Kilpatrick, said: “There is a significant absence of web filtering especially at the smaller end of businesses. There is a gap in awareness not just in productivity, but also in security.” He continued to give details on how criminals have changed their virus or theft tactics and now wait for someone to enter a web site before “dropping the malware on them when they access certain pages – this is active content.”

Kilpatrick added: “When a company is caught for accessing a web site, that is tracked by signature, they would never admit to it. Sometimes SMEs do not get the necessary security until something happens and then the bigger the company the more they try to hide their mistake.” He also said how value can be added to customers, through the channel, by educating end users in what the threats are. “There is a gap of ignorance and end users are not aware of how criminals can access information.”