Security Players Pick Top Threats You Should Be Worried About

Next year's biggest security threats for small and midsize businesses? More of the same with differences, according to Symantec and McAfee's seers.Even a quick glance at the upper reaches of Symantec's Top 10 2008 threats shows that data breaches, Vista vulnerabilities, a widening variety of spam and increased professionalization of cybercrime are the anxiety-leaders.

McAfee's Top 10 threat-take puts Vista near the head of the class (especially as its share-of-market grows) and frets about online gaming, social networking and other Web 2.0 sites as well as increased reliance on virtualization of resources.

Both players are making big plays into the market-space surrounding these concerns, of course, and you'll be seeing plenty of initiatives and products aimed at thwarting the threats.

Looking at danger-lists, though, should be a reminder to you and to every one of your employees that there's trouble on just about every horizon we face when online (or on our phones) -- whether doing business or playing games. There's never been a time when constant wariness, perpetual paranoia, ongoing oversight has been more necessary.

Complacency is not an option.