Untangle,
Inc. today
released the results of their 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. 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.
"SMBs have less
expertise and fewer dollars to dedicate to IT security, but they are the
primary target of a growing number of phishing and malware threats,
particularly as they move towards more cloud-based tools," said Scott Devens,
chief executive officer at Untangle. "This report confirms that SMBs are in
dire need of easy-to-deploy, intuitive solutions to protect their networks that
don't require hiring additional personnel or time-intensive commitments from
existing staff."
Untangle offers
complete network security solutions for small and medium businesses with
limited IT resources and budgets. NG
Firewall, its unified threat management solution, provides a
comprehensive solution for content filtering, malware and threat protection,
secure Wi-Fi, application control, bandwidth optimization, virtual private
networks and more. Known industry-wide for its ease-of-use and comprehensive
reporting, NG Firewall is the number one choice of small-to-medium businesses
and distributed organizations. NG Firewall is seamlessly integrated with
Untangle's cloud services, including ScoutIQ
threat intelligence and Command
Center centralized management. Command Center
lets administrators manage their deployments with ease and convenience from any
browser without requiring an on-premise footprint.
For more
information about Untangle, please visit https://www.untangle.com/.
Download a free copy of the report here.