Employees' USB sticks 'could risk security'

Workers who bring USB sticks and iPods into their place work and connect them to its computer system are a potential threat to their own organisations, according to information security solutions firm Kaspersky.

David Emm, senior technology consultant at the company, explains that employees are not experts in this field and as such they may not be fully aware of the risks.

Giving small business technology advice, he states that if and when workers bring USB sticks and iPods into work they should scan the peripherals before they integrate them into the computer system.

This allows a "layer of confidence" to be established in the firm, Mr Emm adds.

"It's really a question of giving sensible advice to your staff," he concludes.

Meanwhile, research by Websense suggests that 90 per cent of businesses have suffered a hacker attack in the last 12 months and 45 per cent have had their IT systems infected by a computer virus.