Small and medium firms 4x more vulnerable to malware attacks

18% of all targeted attacks are directed at weakly defended businesses with 250 or fewer employees, says Symantec.

Despite the increased risk they face, small and medium businesses (SMBs) in Singapore and across the Asia region do not invest time and effort to protect their information and systems, warned the software security firm. SMBs are either too complacent to guard themselves from malware attacks or find the task too complex to handle.

"For some SMBs, buying, deploying and managing security, storage and backup systems is just too complicated for them to devote the time, money and energy. So they cross their fingers and wing it," said Symantec.

“In today's connected world, small- and medium- sized businesses are especially vulnerable and need to consider how to best protect their technology and information,” said Rowan Trollope, group president of SMB and .cloud, Symantec. “Some SMBs are protected, but many aren’t. Complacency is one reason small businesses often fail to protect themselves, complexity is another.”

Symantec said SMBs need to focus on erecting protection measures specifically to web browsing, online transactions, email, backup and recovery.