In 2013, a Faronics/Ponemon study found that lack of budget and poor security capability skills were the primary causes behind the generally poor state of cybersecurity in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). But, said Dmitry Shesterin, Faronics' VP of product management at the time, "the main reason I see," suggested Shesterin, "genuinely and honestly, they do not care -- they concentrate on business."
Fast-forward six years and little has changed -- except that SMBs now do care. A new survey from Untangle indicates that 80% of small businesses now rank IT security as a priority for their business (slightly up from last year's finding of just less than 80%). However, the other problems persist: low security budget aggravated by minimal or no security staff.
Untangle queried 300 SMBs, with the most common staff level between 25 and 300 personnel, for its 2019 SMB IT security report. It found that 29% of these companies have an annual security budget of less than $1,000 per year. Fifty-two percent have no dedicated security professional on staff, and instead distribute the responsibility across multiple other roles.
SMBs should realize that they are heavily targeted by cybercriminals, both in themselves and as part of the supply chain for larger organizations. According to the Verizon 2019 Data Breach Incident Report (DBIR), 58% of SMBs experienced a cyber incident in 2018. Furthermore, SMBs are less likely to have the resources to fully recover from a serious incident.
But despite the lack of focus on cybersecurity, SMBs are heavily reliant on cyber technology. Fifty-one percent have up to 100 devices connected to their network, and 40% operate in at least five different physical locations (remote or overseas offices and remote workers). Seventy-four percent have deployed at least part of their infrastructure to the ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
