Small firms to get specific e-crime advice

A new guide aims to protect small businesses from hackers and other online dangers

Government-backed industry body the Cybersecurity Knowledge Transfer Network and the Business Crime Reduction Centre (BCRC) are to launch a guide aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to equip themselves against current threats.

The guide, E-crime: What Your Business Needs to Know, features case studies and tips on topics such as email security and spam, data security, phishing, bots and zombies, wireless network security and hacking.

Research by the BCRC in the Yorkshire region prior to compiling the report found that a third of SMBs do not know whether they have anti-virus software installed, while a further 28 per cent do not know whether they have a hardware firewall.

"We first designed what we thought was a basic guide, but took it to focus groups and found out that it was too advanced, so we had to pitch it at a much lower level," said David Stockdale, head of unit at the BCRC.

"E-crime is easy to ignore and there is a real head-in-the-sand approach from a lot of small businesses. We are hoping that the case studies will really get the message out there."

The guide will be available on the BCRC site from 26 January, and has already garnered interest from the Federation of Small Businesses and some police forces, according to Stockdale.