By Pia Heikkila, 28 September 2000 17:30
NEWS Industry experts are claiming that SMEs at the bottom end of the supply chain provide back door access for malicious attacks on the bigger organisations. The warning comes after Patricia Hewitt, UK e-minister, urged small to medium size businesses to make security a high priority in order to gain consumers' trust in ecommerce during a speech at the Labour Party conference in Brighton. Nigel Mould, senior consultant at security specialist Check Point, warned that hackers target small enterprises to get through large corporates' security. He said: "Just because your company does not have a well-known brand name, it does not mean you are not exposed. "Banks for instance can have several connections through partners, who are not protected, which the criminals use as a springboard to the bank's own system." Speaking to Todd Tornqvist, security consultant at Defcom, told silicon.com that SMEs often are not aware of the potential hazards. "SMEs are the most vulnerable for several reasons: they have poor IT skills, combined with a lack of capital and particularly a lack of awareness of the security problems. "The reason we rarely hear about attacks on SMEs is because businesses would rather not discuss their security blunders in public," he said.
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