Symantec 2010 Global SMB Information Protection Survey, stated that there was a concern about the data loss by 67 percent of Indian SMEs. It was revealed that focus on enhancing backup, recovery and archiving initiatives was observed in 67 percent of them.
The study revealed that adoption of complete information protection strategy along with a basic antivirus solution was essential for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) having 10 to 499 employees. Data loss was concerned as a key problem by 67 percent of the respondents and cyber attacks were concerned as the reasons for business risk by 60 percent of them. About Rs. 148,000 was spent by an Indian SME on an average annually on IT which was lower when compared to the Asia Pacific Japan region.
Impact of Data Loss
The survey revealed that loss of critical business information was found to be the top business risk by 50 percent of the respondents. Confidential data was lost by 70% of them in the previous year of the survey. Revenue losses were suffered by 66 percent of the respondents. It was revealed that negative impact was reported on 61 percent of them.
Rise of Initiatives for Information Protection
The study revealed that 80 percent of SMEs consider installation of backup, recovery infrastructure as key concern. A solution was run by 32% of them. Backing up the data on a daily basis is very important and it was observed in 58% of the respondents. However, many SMEs had a lack of resources for baking up. Initiation of implementation process for data protection was observed in 68 percent of the respondents.
Recovery of Disasters
Disaster recovery plan has to be documented by the SMEs. However, only 59% of the respondents had a plan without proper documentation. There were no disaster recovery plans among 24% of the respondents.
Concern on Cyber Attacks
The survey revealed that there was an overall decline in cyber attacks in Indian SMEs. Few cyber attacks were suffered by 68% of the respondents.
The survey recommended some solutions such as education of employees about information protection; safeguard of business information; implementation of effective backup and recovery plans; and securing e-mail and web assets.