Sophos has announced an integrated suite of security products aimed to help SMBs better protect themselves from malicious attacks.

The Sophos Security Suite is designed for both Windows and Macintosh PCs. It caters to organisations with little or no dedicated IT staff, according to company officials.

In September, the company surveyed 540 small businesses and discovered that 64 per cent were not updating their antivirus software in a timely manner.

The suite protects PCs from viruses, spyware, spam and unauthorised intrusion - components that can be installed all at once with no technical expertise required. The suite updates itself every 10 minutes with new intelligence regarding threats and the ability to block them.

The components are managed by Sophos' Control Center, which features a threat-summary dashboard and lets users easily remove adware and other unwanted code.

The included Host Intrusion Prevention System is powered by Sophos' Behavioral Genotype Protection that can identify patterns of malicious code and block it, officials say. Also included is the Sophos Client Firewall, which prevents application hijacking and intruders by hiding PCs from hackers. Sophos' PureMessage technology scans inbound email messages for spam, viruses and spyware.