August 15, 2014
While classic antivirus software solutions stop about half of malware, companies must — and many do — employ a wide array of new tools to counter the numerous new threats and ever-changing cyber-criminal tactics, Computing.co.uk reports.
In a feature about the decline of traditional firewalls and antivirus solutions, the publication quotes data by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for 2013, which said that last year a staggering 93% of large companies and 87% of smaller ones suffered a security breach of some sort.
So what are UK companies doing to counter those threats? Computing.co.uk conducted a survey of their own among 120 IT leaders and it shows that companies are at least throwing money at the problem. Only 2% of respondents delegated none of their IT budget towards security. The rest delegated different parts of their IT spend that way — the vast majority spending over 5% for security.
Where this money goes, however, varies considerably. For example, respondents put insecure user passwords and the theft of data or intellectual property by insiders as the top threats for their businesses. In the meantime, the need to secure new platforms like cloud, mobile computing and social networking was rated down the list, next to malware.
The companies that do take protecting themselves seriously, do so by providing extensive backup and disaster recovery measures. They also employ firewalls and antivirus defence on their servers, as well as at the user endpoint. With the rise of remote working, more businesses have also employed VPN encryption for remote access.