News
Report: SMBs Rank Network Security as Top IT Security Concern
August 2018 by Untangle
Untangle®, Inc. 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.
