SMBs Go without Security Basics

Some of your potential SMB customers are not prepared for today's security threats. Find out what they're missing--then fill in the blanks with your services.

By Cecilia Galvin

How prepared are SMBs for today's ever-growing security threats? Not very, says Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec Corp., and it should know. Earlier this year, the security, storage, and systems management provider commissioned Applied Research to conduct a global survey of 1,425 SMBs in a range of industries and found that a significant security gap exists between knowledge of threats and actions taken to mitigate them.

Some of the surprising statistics include: 59 percent of SMBs have no endpoint security that would cover laptops, desktops, and servers, and 47 percent have no desktop backup and recovery plan. Moreover, 42 percent lack a basic anti-spam solution, 38 percent have not implemented a server backup and recovery solution, and 33 percent lack even anti-virus technology.

"It's amazing--a third of the respondents don't have anti-virus protection," says Kevin Murray, senior director, security product marketing at Symantec. "This is a market that's well understood, it's mature, and most industry analysts will tell you that 95 to 99 percent of customers have anti-virus. What this study is saying is that that's not true in SMBs."

Of the companies surveyed that experienced a security breach, system breakdown or hardware failure was most likely the cause (47 percent), followed by lost or stolen laptops, smartphones, or PDAs (44 percent)--both of which could have been prevented had the right technology been in place.

And why wasn't it? SMBs cite a lack of dedicated IT staff, employee skills, and budget as the primary impediments to deploying security solutions, all of which point to opportunities for solution providers that know how to sell layered, comprehensive security and data backup--and at a reasonable price.