GFI Software: emails are particularly vulnerable in SMBs

Up to 60% of SMB organizations could face serious problems if email services are disrupted for more than 4 hours

PRAGUE, October 18, 2017 – GFI Software, a provider of business network security solutions, has released the results of a survey among Kerio solution partners conducted in September 2017. The results show that in the field of IT for SMB companies, the greatest demand (among 72% of partners) currently exists for communication solutions, with business communication via email being absolutely crucial. If the email infrastructure were to fail, more than half of SMBs would experience serious shortcomings after just 4 hours, and nearly all companies after 24 hours.

Ensuring secure communication is now a higher priority for companies than, for example, ensuring network integrity. They are more concerned about email attacks than web attacks, as evidenced by the fact that the biggest challenges for the operation of communication infrastructure in SMB organizations are spam and virus infections. In addition to ensuring security, the communications field is increasingly addressing user comfort, reflected in demand for groupware solutions.

Key survey findings:

• Kerio partners see the greatest demand for communication solutions (72%), ensuring network integrity (53%), groupware (36%), and web page filtering (33%).
• In business communications, SMB companies most prefer email (100%), telephone contact (58%), and in-person meetings (21%); chat and social networks account for only 8% and 3%, respectively.
• Companies deal most with spam (76%), viruses (70%), and user comfort (32%).
• Serious problems due to an email server outage would affect 13% of businesses within 1 hour, 60% within 4 hours, and 97% within 24 hours.

 

“Email is now the most widely used tool for business communication across all companies and organizations,” said Zdeněk Bínek, responsible for sales of GFI Software solutions in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “At the same time, it is also the most frequent target of attacks and the most commonly used channel for distributing ransomware infections. From this perspective, email is potentially the most vulnerable part of the IT infrastructure in the SMB segment, and demand for its security is logically growing.”

In this area, GFI Software offers SMB companies the mail server and email client solution Kerio Connect, as well as its traditional, proven product GFI MailEssentials and the cloud platform for email management GFI OneConnect.