Enterprise Security: Educate Employees or Leave It to Microsoft? (
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NEWS ANALYSIS: How much does enterprise security really matter? Since most employees aren't being educated, it might not matter enough to businesses. For many companies, using software such as Microsoft Security Essentials makes more sense since employee computers are protected and IT departments can save time and money by not having to train employees about security.Quite a few security issues
have impacted the business world over the past few months. The Conficker worm was considered a possibly damaging issue. The Nine Ball outbreak looked like it had the potential of unleashing some
serious damage on the enterprise after it compromised 40,000 legitimate Websites. In
the meantime, malware has ravaged the Web, causing security firms to find new
ways to confront issues. It's a real problem.
The business world knows that. Instead of turning a blind eye to malware,
more firms are doing things that, they hope, will limit the amount of malware
making its way into the network to threaten mission-critical data. More
companies than ever are deploying multiple layers of security, including
software solutions, hardware stopgaps, and limits on employee Web
traffic. They reason that by stopping the user from accessing malicious
sites, blocking that malware before it even gets into the network, and stopping
the rest that might squeak their way in by circumventing the other protections
through software, it will ensure that security issues might be stopped before
they become harmful. Admins are also forcing employees to run with
limited rights, so they don't have too much liberty to download (knowingly or
not) software that could wreak havoc on the network.
But lost amid all those security initiatives is education. It's not
coveted in the enterprise. For the most part, companies are realizing
that deploying a solution such as Microsoft Security Essentials,
a free software package from Microsoft to protect Windows users, is far more
reliable than spending valuable company time trying to educate employees about
the dangers of the Web.
For a look at Microsoft Security Essentials, please click here.
On one hand, it makes sense. Companies are trying desperately
to grow or
maintain their business as the economic downturn continues to impact
the
world. Spending time educating employees on the dangers of the Internet
might not make too much sense, since that time could be better spent
getting
employees to work. Plus, with all the aforementioned security features
in
place, companies believe that the number of instances impacting the
enterprise
aren't so high that educating employees would be all that necessary.
Simply put, it's cheaper to not worry about the employees'
understanding of Web
dangers and deal with issues as they break out, rather than spend time
educating employees on items that could
be a problem.