Spam Survey By GFI Software For SME’s
GFI Software commissioned a survey on how 200 small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) feel the volume of spam received has changed. The overall response that they got was that the volume of spam is still increasing or at least remaining the same.
The more concerning fact of this is that 40 percent of UK Businesses have gone through data breaches due to spam and the files and links they contain.
From the 200 businesses that took part in the survey 86 percent of IT decision makers said that the level of spam they have been receiving over the past year has only gone up or remained around the same level. The survey revealed the 46 percent of SMBs rely upon anti-spam features of their antivirus to stop the spam from getting through to their inboxes but 70 percent of the total number of business that took the survey said the protection is minimal at best. Over 20 percent use anti-spam gateway devices in conjunction with their mail servers, a fifth use specialist software, and a small 7.5 percent use cloud solutions to combat spam.
92 percent of people in the North West of region of the UK complain about spam more than any other, the South West and Wales are on the lower end of the scale with just 66 percent. The area that has been most affected by Spam and breaches relating to it is London with 56 percent who took the survey having under gone a compromise due to spam.
Phil Bousfield, general manager of GFI Software’s Infrastructure Business Unit said:
“This research shows that the spam problem is not going away, and in fact, the delivery of malicious links and files makes it more dangerous than ever before…Businesses need to respond by taking advantage of all the latest spam-fighting technologies available to them.”
Multi-layered approach to spam defence:
A multi-layered approach to spam defence is the strongest way to combat it with Antivirus components play an effective part of it despite not being the best when running on its own.
“The increasing volume of email-borne threats – coupled with an organisation’s need to balance security and infrastructure costs – is a growing burden on IT administrators looking to find the optimum and most cost-effective approach to email security,” added Bousfield. “Cloud-based anti-spam solutions are increasingly being deployed by businesses to bolster their existing email defence and stop spam from even entering the network.”
James Hedges