A survey of 2000 small businesses in the US and UK shows a gap between security awareness and action.
Security software company AVG surveyed a sample of 2,000 SMBs in the United States and United Kingdom and found that not only do more than half have no security guidelines, but that “1 in 7 have no Internet security software or solutions in place at all.”
Notably, 83% of respondents in AVG’s survey said they were aware of the importance of Internet security, yet not all of them had preventative solutions in place.
67% of respondents are considering moving to cloud-based services in the future.
The results for Canadian small businesses are probably similar or perhaps worse since Canada has often lagged in technology deployment.
Not surprisingly another survey from a security vendor (Panda Security, a company specializing in cloud security) shows that 33% of 315 SMBs surveyed have been infected with malware – mostly through social networks like Facebook.
Symantec and Panda have cloud based anti-malware services suitable for small business and AVG provides free anti-virus software for personal computers.