Large numbers of Irish companies are failing to address the threat posed by spyware despite the fact nearly 70% have been affected by it in the past six months.
And although 85% believed they had some form of anti-spyware tool in place, the survey by IT provider MJ Flood Technology revealed as many as 30% did not realise that their anti-virus, firewalls or filtering were not suitable for preventing spyware.
The majority of respondents – 89% – were from companies with 1-99 users, while 63% were in businesses with 1-50 users. The survey also revealed just under half of the companies were only scanning for spyware once a month or less.
As many as 70% of the companies recognised spyware as a serious threat and nearly eight out of ten did not believe it was being overhyped. But although 85% thought spyware was on the increase, only 36% were planning to allocate budget towards content management.
James Finglas, sales director at MJ Flood Technology, said the survey revealed “a great deal of confusion about spyware and the level of threat it poses to the communications infrastructure”.
A large number of companies were not following best practice and “failing to deploy the type of solution required to block infection” despite the fact spyware could have “serious consequences for business including potential theft of financial assets, operational disruption, loss of market credibility and missed sales opportunities”.
Finglas claimed the survey also revealed a potential issue with the quality of advice businesses were getting from their IT providers. A third of respondents claimed their outsourced IT service provider had “never raised the issue of spyware with them and we believe that this represents a serious educational deficit which needs to be immediately addressed by the IT community”.
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