More than 79% of Gulf businesses hit by viruses in the last six months of 2009

The survey of more than 800 executives revealed that 29% store all their personal data in their work PC and 14% have no confidence in the company's IT security software. While a staggering 98% admit to surfing the internet for non-work related activities, 42% admitted to doing this regularly, with 31% spending one to four during work time.

"92% of all attacks have a web component and organizations need to ensure that they are protecting their business from loss of data, credibility and money. Our dependence on the Web raises our vulnerability especially since 63.6% of all office work is now internet based," said Chris Moore, Managing Director, Trend Micro Middle East and MED. "With a large majority of companies having been successfully attacked in the last 6 months, employee behaviors, lack of awareness, and inadequate protection is putting ME businesses at risk."

The survey was conducted at Gitex 2009, and of the 800 people surveyed, 60% were IT managers, 17% were directors, 5% were general managers, and another 8.2% were system and network engineers. Account mangers accounted for 4.5% and 3.9% were managing directors, where as 0.7% were Chairman's and CEOs.

All internet accounts are password protected and criminals are looking to break passwords and steal data for gain. The survey found that 22% of responders had 6 to 10 internet accounts and 12.5% have 11 to 15 accounts. The alarming fact is that 54.89% use only two to five passwords to manage all their internet accounts, raising fears that if one account is compromised, there is a chance all accounts could be easily compromised.

With spam peaking at more than 200 billion a day globally, the Web has evolved to become a primary threat-infection medium for modern-day attacks. The Middle East accounts for more than 3.56% of global spam, of which the UAE has the highest spam count, followed closely by Saudi Arabia.