Untangle has released the results of its first annual SMB IT Security Report.
The findings explore IT security apprehensions for small and mid-size businesses, showing that firewall/network rated as the top security concern for these organizations, particularly as they begin to deploy increasing levels of infrastructure to the cloud and provide access to larger numbers of devices across their networks.
SMBs will always face limited budgets and resources constraints to allocate towards IT security compared to larger enterprises, Untangle says. However, SMBs face a double whammy as they are just as or more likely than enterprises to be targeted by cybercriminals, but are less equipped to deal with the fallout of a successful breach. It is imperative that SMBs take a proactive approach instead of waiting to become victims.
Untangle conducted a survey polling more than 350 SMBs worldwide to better understand the challenges they face securing their networks, data and users.
The 2018 SMB IT Security Report found that SMBs consistently struggle to deploy IT security solutions with underfunded security budgets and lack of security expertise, with more than half of the organizations surveyed acknowledging they distribute security responsibilities across other roles in the organization. Increasing reliance on cloud infrastructure has also sparked increased concern for network security as more companies plan to, or are researching, SD-WAN solutions.
Key findings from the survey include:
- Less than 30 percent of SMBs surveyed have a dedicated IT security professional on staff; 50 percent distribute IT security responsibilities across other roles.
- 75 percent of SMBs surveyed have fewer than five physical locations, but only 60 percent have fewer than 100 end-user devices to manage.
- Top IT security concerns include budget constraints (47 percent) and limited time to research and understand new threats (37 percent).
- Of the organizations that experienced an attack in the last 12 months, 33 percent were from phishing attacks, 27 percent from malware and 15 percent from ransomware.
- 50 percent of organizations polled have IT budgets under $5,000 per year or less; half of those had less than $1,000 per year to spend on security.
“Cybersecurity expertise is difficult to staff even for the largest enterprises,” said Scott Devens, CEO at Untangle. “Unfortunately, SMBs with limited resources are no less likely to be targets of cybercriminals looking to steal data or exploit them as a means to attack larger targets. SMBs will increasingly look to the channel for comprehensive, appropriate solutions that can safeguard their networks, data and users.”
