The South African small and medium enterprise (SME) industry represents a significant portion of the country's economy, which brings the safety of their IT systems under constant scrutiny.
“SMEs need to protect themselves,” says Fred Mitchell, Symantec business unit manager at Drive Control Corporation. He adds that while SMEs' business systems are often not as high-end as enterprise organisations, the impact of malware can be equally severe. This is especially true when one considers the statistics being released from anti-virus vendors around the globe, stresses Mitchell.
He cites global reports showing that, in 2008 alone, more than 120 million malware variants were discovered, which include viruses, worms, Trojan horses, rootkits and spyware.
Botnets are now posing a large threat to the Internet, states the 2008 Symantec Threat Report. The report specifies that botnets were responsible for approximately 90% of all e-mail spam for the year.
Lucrative business
According to Mitchell, it is apparent that the business of developing malicious applications is an incredibly lucrative and opportunistic one, and that companies of all sizes should be looking to secure their systems against external threats. ”No business can do without comprehensive security that protects it against malware and botnets which can cripple its systems.”
He says everyone can benefit from the continuous evolution of security, with the latest security solutions focusing on smaller businesses. “New offerings include great functionality such as instant protection against botnets, improved online browsing, and identity protection,” explains Mitchell.
It is important to protect SMEs without impacting the overall performance of their systems, argues Mitchell, as organisations need to operate optimally, despite the security solution running in the background.
“The good news is that the IT security marketplace is equally sophisticated. Businesses can truly benefit from the latest advancements that keep up to date with the best hackers can develop and come up with,” concludes Mitchell.
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