Johannesburg, 18 Aug 2010
Security and storage solutions provider Symantec has released a new online comparison tool, the Small Business Check-up.
The company says it gives small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) a holistic view of how they measure up against peers in terms of information protection efficiency and effectiveness.
The Symantec Small Business Check-up is an online questionnaire that enables SMEs to benchmark themselves against survey results from 700 small businesses across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The comparison tool allows participants to assess their organisation's relative vulnerability to data risk and add information about their own environments. It then provides them with an analysis of any gaps or inconsistencies that might cause exposure.
“IT budgets are under pressure as organisations of all sizes try to cut back in the current economic climate,” says David Ribeiro, small business account manager, Symantec.
The Symantec Small Business Check-up has already revealed that smaller companies share a number of serious vulnerabilities, including information risks, with 80% of SMEs having 'medium' to 'high' sensitivity to risk.
This figure, according to the survey, is based on amalgamating their exposure to risk factors including whether they are governed by industry regulation, hold sensitive information, would be disrupted by regulatory breaches, or use mobile technology.
The findings also concluded 35% have little or no ability to track and audit the way information is created, modified, deleted, accessed and moved. According to Symantec, this could leave them exposed to significant risk or potentially facing heavy fines in some instances.
“Some companies don't know how much they are paying to store and access their data, while others are able to minimise those costs,” continues Ribeiro.
“We know that most businesses use only about 30% of their data storage, for example, and that by just managing the data more efficiently they can save money.”
Jon Collins, MD of Freeform Dynamics, which undertook the research on behalf of Symantec, says: “Many small businesses have little idea how effective or efficient they really are in how they approach IT security and data protection when compared to their peers.”
He adds it can be difficult for them to gauge how they measure up, resulting in a tendency to let ignorance be bliss, even if it is not in the best interests of the business.
According to Ribeiro, the check-up tool is designed to show these businesses whether there is room for improvement against competitors of a similar size in comparative industries.
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