For many small enterprises, the cost of implementing a comprehensive set of network security tools is daunting. Open Source solutions offer a way of avoiding these costs, but arcane implementation requirements and a lack of external support make them equally unappealing.

Growing Security Issues Leaving Small Enterprise Behind

As the variety and number of IT security risks that enterprises face continue to increase, the market is quick to respond with new tools designed to combat these new threats. Firewalls beget Intrusion Detection and Prevention, Anti-Virus begets Anti-Spam, Anti-Phishing, and Anti-Spyware. With each new threat comes a new tool to address it, but also a dollar cost to implement it. While larger enterprises are able to take these increased costs in stride, small enterprises with more limited budgets are left to make difficult choices as to which solution will go unimplemented, and therefore which threat will potentially be allowed to propagate.