It’s no secret that times are tough. But at many small and midsized businesses, the sustained sluggishness of IT budgets has compelled managers to make some tough calls, often sacrificing security in the interest of saving a few bucks.
That’s the upshot of a new survey from Lenovo, which canvassed decision makers at SMBs and found that many organizations are engaging in risky IT practices, such as grabbing free Wi-Fi signals from their neighbors and backing up sensitive data and documents on removable memory sticks and CDs. Small Business Computing takes a look.
The continued downward pressure of the crawling recovery on budgets at small businesses is causing many of them to cut corners on IT expenses. Cost-cutting strategies range from “borrowing” Wi-Fi from neighbors to storing critical files on thumb drives, according to a new survey — risky small business security practices, to say the least.
Even for those small businesses that can afford dedicated IT staff, though, restrictive budgets may foster what Lenovo calls an “alarming” lack of attention to keeping data safe.