News digest
SMEs at risk from e-crime
Research carried out among small and medium-sized firms across Europe has found that smaller businesses do not believe they are facing a real threat from cyber criminals.
Almost half of the firms polled said cyber crime was an issue for larger organisations only; 45 percent believed not being high profile would prevent IT security threats and 58 percent said they were not a ‘valuable target’ for cyber criminals.
According to McAfee, the technology company that commissioned the research, this suggests that small firms are ‘burying their heads in the sand,’ as 73 percent of those polled said an online presence was critical to the success of their business. Almost 60 percent of businesses said they wouldn’t make a cyber criminal any money but Greg Day, Senior Security Analyst at McAfee, warned against such assumptions: “We know that cyber criminals don’t discriminate – to them size doesn’t matter.”
Online shopping boom
New research reveals growth in the online retail sector is miles ahead of the high street, with internet shopping topping the £4billion mark for the first time.
According to figures from the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), online sales for July were £4.2billion – up 80 percent on the same month last year. In contrast, figures showed high street retail growth for July was only 3.3 percent higher compared to the same period last year.
James Roper, IMRG Chief Executive, said July’s growth highlighted the high level of consumer demand for e-retailing. He said: “We still have nowhere near enough capacity to meet shoppers’ appetite for e-retail, especially in areas such as parcel delivery, where huge improvements need to be made.”
Social networking worries
More employees are using social networking sites at work, and the amount of time they use the sites is growing rapidly.
In a survey conducted by email research specialist emedia, users of social networking sites revealed they visit the sites on a regular basis and 48 percent admitted accessing them at work.
Eighty-seven percent of all respondents thought social networking sites could be used for business purposes, such as networking (65 percent), exchanging ideas (58 percent), advice (44 percent), recruitment (43 percent), research (35 percent) and selling (31 percent). Nearly one in four users said they logged in on a daily basis.
August record month for spam
August was a record month for spam thanks to fake links to social networking site YouTube, according to security company SoftScan. Ninety-two percent of all emails intercepted by SoftScan in August were spam. The firm also found that video clips are increasingly replacing pdf and other documents as the principal source of spam.
Vista saves £35 a year
Upgrading a PC’s operating system to Vista can save up to £35 a year in energy costs, according to a white paper published by Microsoft. The report outlined the advantages of the Vista ‘Sleep’ feature that switches PCs into a low-power state when not in use. More information can be found at www.microsoft.com//whdc/system/pnppwr
Small business not using email
Despite constant discussion about the benefits of mobile working, only 50 percent of small businesses currently use mobile email, according to a survey by Reed Business Information. In addition, 61 percent of firms with fewer than 50 employees still have no formal IT or mobile communications strategy in place.
Hacker toolkits on eBay
Hacker toolkits that used to be available only on hidden forums are now widely available for sale on eBay, according to security vendor Tier3. While many of the kits are sold as ethical hacker training courses, they can easily be used for malicious purposes.
This article originally appeared in the December 2007 edition of Expand.