The state of SME security

As resellers look to improve their SME customers’ security posture while reducing their security management costs, they can rely on the cloud-client architecture of the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network to enable faster access to threat intelligence and protection.

Based on a survey of over 100 SMEIT Security Providers during June and July 2012, and its own independent analysis, Osterman Research looked into the current state of SME security and the benefits of faster protection and published the white paper, The Cloud Advantage: Increased Security and Lower Costs for SMEs.

The white paper reports that the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend of employees using personal mobile devices and laptops for work is increasing among SMEs.  The typical SME employee uses a number of endpoint devices – a desktop computer, a laptop, a SmartPhone, a tablet, and home computers with various applications on them, all vectors through which malware can enter their SME organisation’s network. Cyber criminals employ multiple compromised endpoints and social networking to reach large numbers of targets, targeting the more popular mobile devices such as Android and iOS.

The Osterman Research survey also found:

-       Android usage gained the largest increase in SME, with the number of Google Androids being used in SMEs increasing 7.1 percent from 2011. The number of Apple iPhone’s being used in SMBs increased 3.1 percent, and Apple iPad usage has increased 1.9 percent from 2011.

-       During a typical month 4.3% of endpoints become infected, which translates to an infection rate of 52.1% annually.

-       During the past several years a growing number of organizations reported security violations through their use of web and email.  Between 2007 and 2012 there was a 35% growth in web violations and a 12% growth in e-mail violations, suggesting that security violations – malware, phishing and related types of attacks – are growing steadily over time.

The various endpoint devices proliferating in SMEs need to be properly secured to protect the company from malware, phishing and related attacks.  Data breaches are becoming so costly that many organisations are at risk of being put out of business through direct financial losses or the high cost of direct or indirect data loss. Last year alone, more than a billion dollars was stolen from small and midsize bank accounts.Besides the consequences to SMEs of data loss, financial loss, or the potential interception of sensitive content, IT Security Providers must spend time and money cleaning customers’ endpoints. Osterman Research found that it takes a mean elapsed time of 72 minutes to remediate a single endpoint, time wasted that could have been avoided with better security.

Additional Findings:

-       IT labor costs are high.  The survey found that each IT staff member supports only 33 endpoints, resulting in a total IT labor cost of USD 2,400 per endpoint or USD 79,200 per year.

-       5.2 percent of IT staff time during a typical week is spent on email security management.

There is a greater likelihood of malware-related infections for the many SMEs who update their pattern files/signatures only a few times per day. There is a greater chance of infection during the security time gap between when malware is released and when the protection is deployed across the various endpoints.  To combat this problem SMEs should update more regularly, as close to real time as possible.  Solutions that manage threat intelligence and pattern file/signature updates in the cloud save on endpoint computing resources and allow security solutions to detect and remediate newly discovered threats more quickly. This will result in lower costs and fewer infections, coupled with fewer IT resource requirements and less time spent on cleaning devices, as well as less time spent managing email and web security.

“Trend Micro is one of the leading security vendors that manage threat intelligence in the cloud.  The cloud-client architecture in the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network provides faster protection than conventional approaches that rely solely on pattern file updates,” concluded Michael Osterman, founder of Osterman Research.

“Trend Micro is committed to enabling our SMB Partners to deliver real time cloud-based security to their customers,” said Amy Luby, global SMB solution marketing manager at Trend Micro. “We are dedicated to helping partners grow their business by providing the best security and customer satisfaction while reducing their overhead costs.”

Trend Micro offers content security that provides immediate protection in a tightly integrated offering of solutions. At the core of these products is the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network. TheSmart Protection Network cloud security infrastructure rapidly and accurately identifies new threats, delivering global threat intelligence to secure data wherever it resides. The Smart Protection Network powers the cloud security solutions, which protect SMEs,  including hosted endpoint security, hosted email security, and hosted mobile device management. IT service providers can manage the entire cloud security portfolio from a cloud-based central management console, with visibility into multiple customers’ deployments from one central command post.

Trend Micro protected SMEs against more than 142 million threats in the first half of 2012 alone.

The state of SME security

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