by Gary Maclean

Created on: November 19, 2008   Last Updated: January 21, 2010

Small businesses, regardless of how small, have become a target of choice for spammers and general Internet fraud. One of the reasons is that it is thought that the smaller a business is, the less the likelihood of them having sophisticated Internet protection. That does not have to be the case. As quickly as Internet fraud is growing so is the community of organizations who offer protection and correction.

IT professionals in small and medium-size businesses need to be aware of what critical items to protect in their business environment. They need to know how to apply the protection and how to maintain their Internet protection system. The following discussion is a brief checklist of sorts, with reasoning behind why the items listed should be protected and the initial steps a businessperson should take to ensure protection, such as buying an antivirus solution. These are the beginning steps and as your own personal sophistication grows so must your protection method.

1. INCOMING EMAILS: Everybody has access to emails. Your entire work force will open, read, and forward some email during the normal workday. The possibilities of infecting your entire network are astounding. A "virus" or "malware" generally gains entrance to your system by attaching itself to an email, then, one of your employees, totally innocently, opens that attachment. The virus or malware has suddenly gained open access to your entire system. Good protection here, at this most vulnerable entry point to your system, will pay for itself over and over again.

PREVENTION: The good news is that this type of infection generally requires a user action to set them free or to activate them. Sound education for your employees about which attachments to open and which ones not to open is a very worthwhile investment. Education should take care of most of the threat but some dangers, including "worms" can enter your system without a host, they do not have to be attached to an email. Besides the employee training, good virus protection software is required to guard against infected emails corrupting your internal system. It is also best to secure a subscription to your virus protection so you can stay up to date on any developments. New viruses are introduced at an astounding rate and you must make certain you are ready for anything new that comes along.

2. EMPLOYEE KEY STROKES: There are other dangers that do not need an email attachment. They can enter your sytem through an innocent looking link within

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