The majority (59 per cent) of small and medium sized businesses in the UK are failing to apply security patches in a timely manner because the process is too time consuming and hard to manage. That's according to a recent survey of 449 SME IT managers commissioned by internet security firm intY that found small businesses struggling to test patches and roll them out throughout their organisations.

intY founder Mark Herbert said some small businesses live under the false impression that only large firms are subject to security attacks. The IntY survey also found that 61 per cent of UK SMEs are wasting money by failing to use software licences they already paid for. "It is outrageous that SMEs in the UK should be penalised by having to pay for software licences they aren’t using because the software licensing system is inflexible and geared towards bigger businesses with bigger budgets. Ideally, small and medium sized businesses should be looking for a more flexible software licensing model which will allow them to pay for licences on a monthly per person basis, and that will help ease the burden associated with managing applications," Herbert said. ®