Over half of UK smaller businesses spend less than 2 percent of their IT budget on security

Smaller businesses often have a limited budget for securing their IT systems which can leave them uniquely vulnerable. Antivirus company Avast launched its free Avast for Business cloud offering aimed at SMBs earlier this year and has been surveying users to find out how they handle their security.

Among the findings are that almost three-quarters of respondents say that all of their employees use the internet. Yet despite the high number of data breaches 57 percent of SMBs in the UK invest only between zero and two percent of their IT budget on security.

There's little consistency in who handles security either. One out of 10 respondents said that an employee who isn't a dedicated IT admin handles the company's IT support services. Almost half have an in-house technician, 10 percent have an external supplier or technician to handle the company's IT support services and 28 percent of SMB owners handle their company's IT.

Before switching to Avast for Business 55 percent of SMBs were relying on free consumer security solutions. Only 23 percent used premium business solutions and a worrying three percent used no solution at all.

The biggest threats are seen as losing valuable data (31 percent) along with loss of productivity (23 percent) and losing customers (16 percent). Where BYOD is concerned 52 percent allow employees to access company data on their own devices, but more than half of these (54 percent) don’t have a BYOD policy in place.

There's a summary of the survey findings in infographic form below or you can read more on the Avast blog.

Image Credit: Manczurov / Shutterstock