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Safety first for wireless small businesses

Sep 05 2007

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Small Businesses hoping to utilise the internet must ensure that all the necessary safety precautions are taken, web experts have warned.

Get Safe Online, a government run internet safety group, have urged small business owners to encrypt their wireless networks to reduce to risk of breaches of privacy.

Explaining the ever-increasing need for web safety and awareness, Tony Neate at Get Safe Online says: 'People have got to be very aware of privacy when it comes to using wireless.'

He adds: 'Make sure that nobody has access to your network [or is] piggybacking off you. If you're paying ten pounds a month you don't want someone else sharing your bandwidth down the road. We've seen some police cautions in that area. You want to use encryption when you're using wireless.'

According to a survey by the organisation, two-thirds of SMEs use their computers to store sensitive information and 36 per cent of enterprises have been affected by a virus.

For more information visit www.getsafeonline.org

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