Poll: Half of European companies unprotected against vulnerabilities

The study, conducted by Ipsos Research, found that 45 percent of over 600 senior IT personnel throughout Europe questioned felt that their IT infrastructure was "never 100 percent protected from software and network vulnerabilities."

Other findings revealed that over a quarter (27 percent) of those questioned said it takes 48 hours or more from the time a patch is issued to the IT infrastructure being fully protected from that vulnerability. One in five (19 percent) said it takes up to a week or more.

Over a third (36 percent) of European businesses have no idea how many patches they applied to their business in a six-month period and 58 percent of IT professionals questioned have no idea how much the deployment of patches is costing their business.

John Parker, product line director for intrusion prevention at McAfee, the company that commissioned the survey, said that patch management was a serious concern for companies.

"Organizations are vulnerable to IT attacks because security patches are issued too frequently for businesses to safely test and deploy throughout the organisation in a timely fashion," he said. "The only solution to mitigate the risk from this and give executives piece of mind when it comes to the security of their business is to combine a prioritised patch management process with proactive intrusion prevention solutions."