Consumers forced to seek enterprise-grade protection

10.05.2005
Von Michael Crawford

Symantec Corp. senior regional product manager Norm Kohlberger believes there is little difference between enterprise and consumer antivirus products.

With an eye on the lucrative SMB and consumer space, Kohlberger says consumers face just as many threats as their enterprise counterparts.

Releasing the results of a study of 300 users in Australia and 200 in New Zealand, he said concerns about the level of online security risks are increasing.

More than 50 percent of respondents believe the amount of spyware, adware, spam and phishing scams on the Internet has increased, with 85 percent affected by adware and 77 percent exposed to viruses.

From a live update point of view, he said it no longer really matters who or where you are, or the level of protection you demand, because consumers have just as many issues when dealing with online security as enterprises.

Poor perceptions about online security is bad news for e-commerce, but is driving demand for greater protection.

In fact, Frost & Sullivan senior security analyst, James Turner, said most enterprises use at least two antivirus vendors.

"Enterprises generally have a standard policy of using two antivirus engines ... as far as I can see vendors targeting both the consumer and enterprise use different boxes and different architectures, so there will be variations," Turner said.

"For example, Computer Associates has two AV engines for its corporate edition and only one for consumer."