Small and medium enterprises spend as low as Rs one lakh in a year on IT security though the threat of data losses is as high as ever, a study has said.
According to a study by IT security solutions provider Symantec, while companies understood the need to protect information indicating high awareness levels, this did not translate into users deploying solutions to effectively protect corporate data.
"There is a high awareness level and even smaller firms understand the need for protecting data, but they do not invest heavily or hire manpower to handle their IT. IT spends are sometimes as low as Rs one lakh," Symantec India Director (Channels and Alliances) Ajay Verma told reporters here.
While 24 per cent of the respondents said their IT spends were about $1,500-5,000 (Rs 70,900-2,35,000), another 23 per cent said they invested less than $500 (Rs 23,637) annually on IT.
The study spanned 75 SMBs (with up to 500 employees) in the country across verticals like financial services, healthcare, retail, education, telecommunications, manufacturing and real estate.
Data loss on account of virus attacks (73 per cent) topped the concern list of the participants, but concern for information losses because of spam (64 per cent), memory sticks (72 per cent) and e-mail (70 per cent) was also reflected in the study.
The study showed that barriers to IT security adoption were in the form of staffing and budget costs.
While 71 per cent said budget was the primary concern, 55 per cent said employee skills was also an impediment. Low awareness levels of threats and time were also some reasons for low adoption of IT security solutions by the SMBs.