Protecting your business data: Five Dos and Don’ts for SMBs

Small and midsized businesses have a particularly challenging time protecting company data. They have many of the same security and backup challenges as large enterprises, but fewer resources in terms of funding, time and specialized expertise.

The stakes are high: Symantec’s State of Information Survey 2012 gathered information from more than 2,000 IT managers at companies with between five and 250 employees. Asked about the consequences of losing business data, the managers cited loss of customers (49%), brand damage (43%), increased expenses (41%) and decreased revenues (37%).The amount of data that businesses need to protect is also increasing rapidly. In the same survey, IT managers projected data stores at small and midsized businesses will grow 178% during the next year.