Latest Research from ESET Points to the Opportunity for SMBs In Australia to Withstand Emerging Threats without Slowing Resources
ESET®, the global leader in proactive digital protection with a record of 10 years consecutive VB100 awards for its award-winning ESET NOD32® technology, today released its latest Threat Report for Australia, highlighting the emerging threat from Trojan software targeting LinkedIn and other commonly used applications.
The ESET semi-annual Threat Report is based on end user device activity analyzed within ESET LiveGrid® technology, ESET’s powerful cloud-based early warning engine and malware collection network, over a eight month period. ESET LiveGrid® technology also utilizes user interactions across a wide range of Australian businesses, government entities, small to medium businesses and other organizations.
The report shows that from January to August 2013, the biggest single threats came from the group of malicious software commonly grouped as Trojans. Trojans are typically used by criminals to steal data. According to the report, Trojan activity has been on the rise over the past six months. Small to medium businesses are being targeted in particular, and especially via LinkedIn, a software platform increasingly used by people seeking work opportunities or employers looking to find staff.
Senior executives from ESET were in Australia for the opening of ESET’s local Australian office in Sydney this week. Parvinder Walia, Marketing Director, ESET Asia Pacific, said the ESET Threat Report highlighted the need for businesses of all sizes to be ready for unknown threats, and to create a defence-in-depth approach for security.
“The malware threat is not insurmountable, even for smaller businesses which often don’t have in-house IT or security staff,” says Mr. Walia.
“It is important to remember, that with the available security software, small to medium businesses can achieve the same level of threat coverage as the larger enterprises - and therefore continue to access important applications such as LinkedIn. They can also deploy antivirus solutions without dramatically stifling their network and computing resources and can protect against zero day or unknown threats. We know this because at ESET, we have a 25 year reputation of leading the industry and our ESET NOD32® technology holds the longest consecutive string of the VB100 awards of any other AV vendor,” adds Mr. Walia.
Mr. Walia also announced the appointment of Florin Vasile to the role of Country Manager, Australia, to grow the local business and provide renewed focus on developing the ESET partner program. Mr. Vasile joins ESET from a background of executive positions with leading IT&C companies in multiple countries and continents.