John Pescatore, an analyst with Gartner, said implementing personal firewalls to guard against Microsoft security flaws is a critical enterprise requirement. However, businesses would have to pay about £100 per user to roll out personal firewalls to corporate PCs. Ongoing support costs could be an extra £30 a year per user. “The growing use of corporate desktops on broadband connections means that corporate PCs, particularly laptops used by remote workers, are more exposed to direct internet-based attacks,” said Pescatore. Microsoft agreed that laptops and desktops should be loaded with their own firewall, which is not yet standard practice. Graham Titterington, a senior analyst at Ovum, said corporate network security was particularly at risk from vulnerabilities in laptops and homeworkers’ PCs with always-on broadband connections. He said the risk has been there for years but it is gradually increasing. Full Story