IT Security

IT security threats to small and medium sized businesses

While there is rightly an acceptance about the need for IT security it pays to remind ourselves what the threats actually are because there is a lot of mis-information. It is easy to be carried away with the tide and prescribe solutions without understanding how big these threats actually are.

The threats are not just threats to your IT but to your business productivity and revenue; the former through potential down time and the latter because of loss of commercially sensitive data - customer lists etc. These threats manifest themselves either electronic or physical.

Physical IT security threats

In the rush to buy anti-virus software and install firewalls, physical IT threats are often overlooked but actually pose a greater IT threat to the small and medium sized business. Physical threats include acts of God such as fire and flood as well as man made threats from theft of equipment and theft of data.

To mitigate acts of God, anyone responsible for the security of the data and systems within a business should regularly ask themselves 'if the building I am sat in was not here on Monday morning how fast could we get back up and running?' Then run through the activities of staff and their data and systems to assess how they would carry out those functions in the event of a total building loss.

Man made threats are harder to counter. Greater mobile working means that laptops left on car seats and Blackberrys left on trains are just part of the problem. Just disposing of your old equipment is a security risk. You might be interested to know that used hard drives fetch a premium on online auction sites because of the value of the data that may be on them - identities, bank details etc. It is thought that 34% of second hand hard drives for sale have data on them.

Sending data to customers or partners is also fraught with danger as has been well publicised in the last 12 months through loss of disks containing personal details - a UK company lost a £1.5m government contract because some sensitive data they sent went missing.

More often than not the risk is accidental and not malicious but it is especially important to consider that the greatest threat of a directly commercial nature will come from physical theft of sensitive data from your own computers either by an employee or someone who has access to your network. In troubled times it is even more likely that a disgruntled ex-employee might destroy or steal on a USB stick or email to their personal account some valuable data such as customer lists or other sensitive data.

For strategies to deal with your physical IT and network security see below.

Electronic threats

Your network, your users and your business productivity levels are under constant attack from viruses, trojans, malware, scareware and spam. With over 10 years experience we have seen the growth of these threats as the world went online and hackers and criminals woke up to the opportunities of the net just as businesses.

Here are a few facts about these threats...

(Source: Sophos Security Threat Report)

IT Security Solutions from Twisted Fish

Twisted Fish can help you defend your network and data from all these threats by delivering a comprehensive suite of security services and managing them on an ongoing basis.

For further help and advice on identifying your IT security risks in your business call us on 0845 450 7448 or email us at support@twistedfish.com

IT Security Services for SMEs

  • Comprehensive managed desktop security including anti-virus and software firewalls
  • URL filtering solutions to prevent users browsing inappropriate or dangerous sites
  • Network firewalls
  • SSL and IPSec VPN's
  • SSL Certificates to secure your websites

Twisted Fish are accredited partners/vendors of data and network security products from the following vendors

  • Cisco
  • Symantec
  • Sonicwall
  • Microsoft