Malware & The Workforce

Posted on 18th Mar 2010 in News

Malware & the mobile workforce

At Ratcliff we have found one of the big questions for us from clients is regarding Malware. Everybody knows someone who has been infected, and as the workforce becomes more “mobile” this is a hot topic for businesses too.

According to IDC's Worldwide Mobile Worker Population study 2007-2011 the number of worldwide mobile workers will reach one billion by the end of 2011. And just as the mobile workforce is growing, so are the threats to your computer systems. Understanding how to stop your mobile workers from becoming infection vectors will be a crucial challenge in the future, says Mark Tickle, MD for EMEA at Webroot.

Traditional security mechanisms may not be enough to protect mobile users. Many “road warriors” will be away from the office for days at a time, making it increasingly difficult for IT departments to centrally manage computers and ensure that desktop anti-virus software is regularly updated in the field. With the number of malware variants now topping 25 million, regular updates are vital to ensure protection.

Another option is gateway protection, in which laptops are protected by an appliance software product on an organisation's network, However, in the small business arena this solution can also be difficult to manage and is very costly.

The third option is software-as-a-service (SaaS), in which a third-party security provider manages protection against malware, spam and spyware using its own computers on the internet.

SaaS provides more protection than is possible on a single mobile device, which is especially important as more slimmed-down netbooks make their way into the small businesses. With malware writers employing increasingly sophisticated techniques to infect your employees' systems, IT professionals need to dedicate more resources toward threat analysis and protection. Modern online criminals are also increasingly spreading malware by infecting legitimate sites.

BusinessWeek, the New York Times, and even some UN sites have been infected with malware in the past, and mobile users have no way of knowing which sites are dangerous at any given moment. It is far better to let your web security vendor scan ahead for you and update the list of dangerous destinations centrally, creating better protection both in terms of accuracy and timeliness.

Ratcliff would love to speak to you regarding your IT network security and how we can help to protect your mobile workers from Spam, Viruses and Malware.

Back