PHYSICAL AND OPERATIONAL CYBER SECURITY VULNERABILITIES OF SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES IN ANAMBRA STATE

Abstract

The study determined the physical and operational cyber security vulnerabilities of small and medium scale enterprises in Anambra State. Two research questions guided the study. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprised 150 information technology managers in ICT training centres in Anambra State. Instument for data collection was a validated questionnaire developed by the researcher. Test of reliability of the instrument using Cronbach Alpha method yielded co-efficient values of .84 and 0.86 with an overall reliability co-efficient of 0.85. Mean and standard deviation was used to analyze data for the study. Findings revealed that erratic electric supply, extreme temperature, inadequate physical access control and vandalism among others are physical cyber security vulnerabilities of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Anambra State. Finding also showed that failure to resolve of security incidents, poor handling of security incidents, insufficient recording of system activity, failure to ensure control over software installation, poor control over encryption keys and lack of review of system activity records among others are operational cyber security vulnerabilities of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Anambra State. Based on these findings the following recommendations were made among others that owners of SMEs should ensure that they ensure that the physical cyber security infrastructures required for ensuring the safety of critical business data and information are provided. It was also recommended that SMEs should ensure that high priority attention is given to the monitoring and review of system information behaviour and log.