Computer Associates (CA), one of the world’s largest management software companies, announced the results of a CA-driven international survey conducted by Quocirca Ltd., a leading independent business analyst organization, and highlighting that small and medium businesses (SMBs) remain highly vulnerable to a variety of cyber-threats resulting in unacceptable exposure to significant business risk.
Quocirca surveyed 440 senior managers from companies in the U.S. and Europe and highlighted that many SMBs have limited resources, expertise and awareness to deploy the appropriate security measures to protect their IT environments from malicious cyber-threats.
“CA sees the threats to SMBs in the Arab countries as much higher than the survey indicates due to even more limited resources and IT security spending,” said Abdul Karim Riyaz, business technologist at CA in the Arab countries. “Based on CA’s own internal research for this region, we estimate that there are just under five million SMBs who, according to IDC, account for 37 percent of all IT spending. Unfortunately, security tends to take a back seat when it comes to prioritizing IT spending by most regional SMBs.”
The Quocirca study showed that SMBs have relatively limited resources with which to manage their increasingly dense and heterogeneous IT environments. SMB IT environment are surprisingly complex and despite their size, SMBs often wind up with a wide range of hardware and software resources.
The survey also identified that data protection processes are often managed manually and therefore frequently neglected. Additionally, SMBs are slow to react to emerging threats with 25% confessing that they had not checked the security of their internet connection in at least a year. Finally, the report states that poor patch management leaves many SMBs open to known security vulnerabilities.
“While SMBs continue to embrace technology, a disturbing number lack the resources necessary to protect their IT assets in a sufficiently organized manner,” said Bob Tarzey, service director at Quocirca Ltd. “SMBs need to make sure they have a comprehensive security and backup strategy in place for their increasingly business-critical computing infrastructure.”
“Quocirca’s studies demonstrate that SMBs need to better automate their security, backup and PC upgrade processes,” added Riyaz. “CA has responded to this urgent market need with total protection solutions that allow SMBs to implement important risk-mitigating best practices despite their lack of in-house IT security manpower.”
To access the Quocirca survey and a CA whitepaper entitled “The Threats You Face: Why Total Protection Matters”, visit http://ca.com/smb/bestpractices.
About CA
Computer Associates International, Inc. (NYSE:CA), one of the world's largest management software companies, delivers software and services across operations, security, storage, life cycle and service management to optimize the performance, reliability and efficiency of enterprise IT environments. Founded in 1976, CA is headquartered in Islandia, N.Y. and serves customers in more than 140 countries. For more information, please visit http://ca.com.
CA users in the Arab World include Emirates Bank International, Dubai Department of Civil Aviation, Etisalat Contact Center, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Company, Al Jubail Petrochemical, Bank of Beirut and the Royal Court Affairs in Oman
