Integrators must hold their customer's hand, says Symantec

The breaches included instances where information has been subject to unauthorised access, often where the data is lost, stolen, or hacked. 

Steve Martin, SMB director at Symantec told CRN in an interview when you looked at the results from North America, only 29 percent of companies in the US and 27 percent of SMBs in Canada experienced the same type of breaches as A/NZ.

"There are a couple of reasons for those differences," he said.

"Some of these companies don't have their own IT staff therefore they don't have the knowledge or skills to keep their security up-to-date.

"Also companies in the US are governed by data mandatory disclosure law, which is in place in several states across the country."

Martin said the law required an organisation to inform their customers of any loss of their personal information.

The law gave organisations a myopic view on IT security and forced organisations to invest in the right protection.

However, in Australia there are no such mandatory disclosures and therefore data protection isn't in the forefront of an SMB's mind.

"The current privacy laws in this region were written 23 years ago by Justice Michael Kirby when there was no Internet or mobile phone," he said.

"The Australian Law Reform Commission is looking at some three hundred changes to local privacy laws, which includes data disclosure," he said.

"The proposed changes are currently with Senator John Faulkner and there should be results by the end of this year, so organisations can move forward."

Martin said there were a couple of key things that integrators need to bear in mind with the SMB customer's security issues.

According to the survey, 38 percent of respondents said they had old security or outdated security software.

"It absolutely critical for IT service providers to make sure their customers are currently installed with the latest security software," he said.

"The security channel needs to go and talk to their customers and get in front of them to engage them in discussion on threats.

"It's the role of the IT channel to hold their customer's hands and as experts in IT they have a requirement to provide the best IT service."

Symantec 2009 Global SMB Security and Storage Survey drew responses from 1,425 small and medium businesses in 17 countries with 100 responses from Australia (50) and New Zealand (50). 

Respondents were from a wide range of industries, including financial services, telecommunications, manufacturing and retail. The size of companies of respondents ranged from 10 to 500 employees.