Rise of the dreaded pod-slurper

Businesses still rate viruses as the their number one IT concern, closely followed by spyware, according to a survey carried by etailer WStore.

The recent problem of Pod Slurping also cropped up, albeit with just seven percent of the vote, as this is still a relatively minor issue.

Pod Slurping involves hooking an iPod to a PC and, thanks to a sniffing application, copying all of the Microsoft Office files on that system to the device in a just couple of minutes or less. 

Viruses were cited as the main concern in 84 percent of companies surveyed, with spyware getting 75 percent of the vote; phishing and spoofing got 40 percent.

Surprisingly, relatively few companies saw staff as a threat, though employees are more likely to cause problems than hackers.

Only a quarter of SMEs viewed staff as a potential threat with that figure rising sharply among corporate companies to 60 per cent.

More than one in three respondents are still worried about direct hacking. WStore claimed many new hacking groups are emerging from the Middle East and China. Attacks from China have increased 30-fold in less than two years.