May 28, 2009 – Raleigh, NC
It is never possible to guarantee that a company is totally secure or that a breach will not occur, however implementing the latest tools and providing ongoing, end-user education will minimize those risks and allow companies to focus more on growing their business rather than repairing it.
“The SMB market space is more vulnerable to security breaches as the high-end enterprise. SMB owners or those individuals tasked to provide IT support for the organization must focus on security when building the infrastructure rather than looking at it as an afterthought. Failure to do so will put the company in reactive mode with the potential to lose multiple thousands of dollars in remediation costs, lost productivity and bad press,” Microsoft Most Valuable Professional, Brad Dinerman, points out in a white paper entitled ‘Security considerations for small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), being released today by GFI Software.
It is a safe to assume that the single-most important factor that affects a small business’ decisions is budget. SMB owners do not usually have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on IT infrastructure. Instead, they look at their checkbook as they hand over their hard-earned dollars to purchase devices such as firewalls to protect their internal network.
“Without computer networks, many businesses would just stop functioning. Email goes down and they can no longer communicate with customers. The server goes down and they lose access to the critical database. So why is it that so many small businesses just live day-to-day when it comes to planning for their IT needs? The answer is simple: IT can be expensive. Maintaining and securing it will add even more expense. Businesses just deal with their current needs and hope for the best, and that is often the crux of the problem.
“SMBs need to understand that investment in security cannot be an after-thought. It needs to be well-planned, both technically and financially. Without this level of planning, businesses will always be reacting to the latest emergencies, losing money in the process, and never being able to focus on growing the business rather than just repairing it,” Dinerman concludes.
To read more about these issues and what an SMB can do to enhance security, download a copy of the FREE white paper, please visit http://www.gfi.com/whitepapers/security-considerations-for-smbs.pdf (Registration not required).
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