Business Versus Technology: Sources of the Perceived Lack of Cyber Security in SMES

Emma Osborn, Sadie Creese and David Upton

Working Papers of the Sustainable Society Network+

February 2015 conference paper

ISSN 2052-8604

There is increasing concern about the standard of cyber security in SMEs, voiced by governments and the large companies who interface with them, yet many past initiatives seem to have failed to have a significant impact on the sector. In this paper, we report upon a study in which Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) were surveyed to establish what barriers they might face in terms of cyber security. The results were combined with publicly available information to identify how stakeholders in the SME cyber security ecosystem interact, and establish whether the perceived lack of uptake of cyber security measures in SMEs was accurate. The paper concludes by discussing how the refined understanding of the barriers faced by SMEs might influence development of future SME security solutions.

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