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Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been warned to not underestimate threats to their security, in light of a report by McAfee.

Most of those surveyed did not think they were a prime target for attack.

Just under half (46 per cent) did not think an attack on them would make a cybercriminal money, while just over half (52 per cent) thought they were too small to be noticed.

This was reflected in the fact that 43 per cent just used their IT equipment’s default settings and didn’t customise security.

However, nearly a third of the businesses had been attacked at least four times in the past three years, with a quarter of those attacks taking a week to recover from.

‘Just because a business is small does not mean that it is immune to security threats,’ said McAfee’s senior vice president of the mid-market segment, Darrell Rodenbaugh.

‘For businesses of all sizes, viruses, hacker intrusions, spyware and spam can lead to lost or stolen data, computer downtime, decreased productivity, compliance issues, lost sales and even loss of reputation.’

Time management was also considered to be a factor in SMBs poor security practices, with 42 per cent having less than an hour to spend on security.

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The web browser leverages the company’s Small Screen Rendering technology.

Opera Software, today announced that its Opera Mini browser is now available on phones enabled with Qualcomm’s BREW platform.

The company boasts of providing an excellent user experience by leveraging the company’s Small Screen Rendering technology to reformat the web page to fit inside the screen width. The company also avers that their new Desktop Mode gives users a wider view of the page, displaying web pages exactly as they appear on the PC. The company states that enhancements such as the Opera Zoom functionality allow users to dive into the page, and dynamically navigate the content, resulting in a more intuitive browsing experience.

The company believes that for operators, a turnkey white-labeled Opera Mini solution increases brand loyalty among users and adds that the Indian telecom operator, Tata Teleservices Ltd, was one of the first to realize the advantages of Opera Mini for their BREW handsets.

“We are excited to provide Opera with the ability to extend the offering onto BREW-enabled devices,” said Bob Briggs, senior vice president and general manager of BREW for Qualcomm Internet Services. “Opera Mini represents another way that customers can have an enhanced user experience with high speed and content rich Web sites right from their BREW phones.”

“Opera consistently aims to improve the quality and performance of mobile Web browsing. By making Opera Mini available on Qualcomm’s BREW platform, we are able to offer a fast and cost efficient Web experience to millions of mobile phone users,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO for Opera Software. “The rapid growth of Opera Mini solidifies Opera’s leadership position in the mobile Web browsing space and is further proof of the value that leading operators, such as TATA Teleservices, are finding in our solutions.”

“By offering Opera Mini on BREW-enabled handsets, we are able to bring innovative data offerings to our users. Opera has once again proven itself as the pioneer in providing rich and full access to the Web,” says Pankaj Sethi, President, VAS & Enterprise Marketing, Tata Teleservices Ltd.

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A number of businesses are failing to adequately prepare for periods of email downtime, according to new research.

The survey, conducted by Osterman Research for technology firm Neverfail, found that over half of respondents only know they are experiencing email problems when users report issues with sending or receiving messages.

A further 40 per cent of firms said they stand to lose as much as $50,000 (£24,622) for every instance of email downtime, equivalent to almost $1 million a year for each business.

‘The emergence of email as the dominant communications platform signalled a paradigm shift in the way business is conducted, yet companies have been slow to recognise that email should have 24/7 availability,’ commented Andrew Barnes, senior vice president of corporate development at Neverfail.

Earlier this year, research from email continuity solution provider Teneros found that 96 per cent of firms see a significant drop in staff productivity during an email outage.

Read the full report.

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