More than 93% of accountancy firms will go bust within a year
Posted by Christie Malry on March 3, 2010 at 11:36 pm
... or so a story posted on Accountancy Age claimed today.
it's been pulled now, after I pointed it out, but the original story can still be seen on Google cache.
Facebook could cost accountancy firms millions of pounds
Viruses from social networking sites could put firms at risk of closure
Written by Rachael SinghMore than 93% of accountancy firms will go bust within a year due to viruses from social networking sites, an IT expert has warned.
The industry specialist warns firms could lose millions every year due to complications from sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
The closures could occur if firms did not have access to their data for ten days or more due to an IT disaster which are increasingly caused by viruses from social networking sites.
Fewer than half of accountancy firms back-up their data every day putting themselves at further risk.
Jason Fitzgerald, sales and marketing director at technology consultancy Certus IT, said: “These sites are easily manipulated, and by simply accepting an invitation or clicking on a link or application that is sent through these sites, an employee could infect an entire network with a virus, which, if there is no appropriate security or back-up in place, could cause the loss or theft of a company’s data."
He adds that a company recently suffered an IT disaster for four days due to a virus downloaded from a dating website.
“Accountancy is an industry particularly at risk. Should confidential client information be stolen from computer files as a result of malware from these sites and poor internet security, the consequences could be very costly,” he said.
Hunting around on google a bit more, it turns out that Jason Fitzgerald has been hawking this story and the same dodgy statistics elsewhere as well. But shouldn't an accountant's professional scepticism have led the Age to pick up on this ridiculously sensationalist article?
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