Interviews

IT warning to small firms

by Mark Rowe

UK small businesses lack awareness of how vulnerable they are to serious cyberattacks, and what impact this could have, both in terms of cost and reputation to their business. That is claimed by Symantec from its research into business confidence. It found that small businesses are gradually feeling more optimistic about growth opportunities over the next year, despite half still seeing the general state of the economy as the biggest threat.

The research found that business priorities are focused on finding and retaining customers and providing the best customer service, but improving online security is still very low on their priority list, despite small businesses in the UK experiencing 22 per cent of targeted cyber-attacks in 2013. Research into the views of 500 small business owners and those involved in business decisions, carried out by Vision Critical in June 2014 and commissioned by Symantec, found that:

– More than half (58 per cent) are confident about business growth this year, with finding and retaining new customers their number one priority for business growth

– Investment in IT infrastructure (11 per cent) and improving online security (3 per cent) is low on their agenda, even though the use of security technology to help protect from external threats (e.g. phishing/online scams/hacking) is important to more than four in five (81 per cent) small businesses

– Almost three quarters (74 per cent) think that a day’s worth of downtime (i.e. all IT systems went down) would impact their company’s reputation; and

– In terms of the monetary value in lost revenue of a day’s worth of downtime, surprisingly 32 per cent think they wouldn’t suffer from any lost revenue, with half estimating it would cost between £1,000-£5,000 a day

Orla Murphy, EMEA Small Business Strategist at Symantec, said: “Small businesses are the backbone to the UK economy so it’s great news that they are confident about future growth. But if they are to achieve their business goals in the next year, they must understand just how vulnerable they are to external cyber threats that could impact their business in major ways.

“It may be that small businesses do not believe that they are even a target for cyber criminals, however attackers often use small businesses as a means of entry to larger enterprises through the supply chain. Even though IT security is sometimes not a top priority for small businesses as their owners work really hard often undertaking multiple roles, there are lot of tools available designed especially for them, and so we want to make securing their business the easy part.”

Commenting, Mike Cherry, Federation of Small Businesses National Policy Chairman, said: “Small businesses must protect themselves against cyberattacks, we know that 41 per cent of our members have fallen victim to online fraud, costing them thousands of pounds. We need to do all we can to encourage small firms to grow and it’s vital businesses use the tools available to them to ensure they’re adequately protected. Businesses can no longer put their head in the sand hoping the threat of cyberattacks is going to go away, because it isn’t.”

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