Symantec has announced a free new tool designed to help small and midsized businesses (SMBs) in Australia and New Zealand understand the potential information risks that can affect them.

The Symantec Risk Assessment Tool uses a quick online questionnaire to assess security risks, assign a risk rating, and then provide recommendations to help businesses improve their information protection.

Information is critical to businesses of all sizes and SMBs are facing increased risks to their confidential information— including bank account numbers, credit card information and customer and employee records.

According to Symantec’s SMB Disaster Preparedness Survey, Asia Pacific and Japan, September 2009:
The average cost of downtime is $30,000 in Australia and $15,000 in New Zealand per incident. This covers productivity, lost sales and replacement equipment. Incidents result in downtime of at least eight hours for 40 percent of all businesses.

In the last 12 months, Australian and New Zealand businesses have experienced power outages (79 percent); natural disasters, such as fire, flood, and storm (70 percent); a virus or hacker attack (67 percent); employees accidentally deleting information (65 percent); and computer system failure (63 percent).

Yet, 30 percent of businesses do not have a plan to deal with these disasters.

“With information protection, prevention is certainly better than a cure and the Symantec Risk Assessment Tool helps businesses address some of the most common information risks before they become a threat to their business,” said Steve Martin, director, small and midsized businesses, Pacific region, Symantec.

“Small businesses today operate in a challenging environment and every business, regardless of size, relies on credible information to operate effectively. By simply checking how well their information and their business is protected, business owners can save a lot of money and stress in the long run.

The Symantec Small Business Risk Assessment Tool is free and can be found at: http://www.assessyourbusinessrisk.com/customer