Business start-ups at high risk from digital attack

Small businesses are being warned they are ignoring a new and rapidly growing threat from digital perils such as email viruses and hacking attacks.

Internet security service McAfee.com said that with the difference between success and failure balanced on a knife-edge, a single virus attack could mean life or death for many small businesses.

They revealed that a simple email virus worm, such as the notorious 'I_LOVE_YOU', which caused an estimated £7 billion in damage and down time to business users worldwide, could decimate many small office/home offices (SOHOs) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Earlier this month hackers forced CloudNine Communications - one of Britain's oldest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - out of business. The company suffered a distributed denial of service attack where a computer is swamped with an overwhelming number of requests that are disguised to look innocuous, so that the website that it controls grinds to a halt.

Sam Curry, McAfee.com security architect said: "SOHOs and SMEs must employ comprehensive anti-virus and anti-hacker tools and policies that are up-to-date and available around the clock. Smaller companies often lack the resources for addressing security as a process and are exposing vital resources to wily hackers and opportunistic viruses alike."

However, unlike many threats facing small businesses, McAfee's security experts claim that most virus outbreaks and hacker attacks can be avoided.

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