A practical guide for owners and office managers: what to protect, what the law expects, and how to choose by size.
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A small business holds things a household doesn't: customer records, invoices, payroll, banking access and staff email. A single infected laptop can lead to ransomware on a shared drive, a hijacked mailbox sending fake invoices to clients, or a POPIA incident you have to report. Home products protect a device. Business products also help you see and control all your devices, keep them consistent, and prove you took reasonable steps.
Home licences are generally intended for personal use. If they're protecting work machines, check the licence terms and plan a move to a business product at the next renewal.
The Protection of Personal Information Act requires a responsible party to secure the integrity and confidentiality of personal information by taking "appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures" (section 19). Section 22 requires notifying the Information Regulator and affected people when there are reasonable grounds to believe personal information was accessed by an unauthorised person. POPIA doesn't prescribe a product, but up-to-date endpoint protection on every device that touches personal information is a basic, demonstrable measure. Pair it with backups, strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, staff awareness, and prompt updates. This is general information, not legal advice. Read the Act on the Information Regulator's site.
Business products on this site start at 5 seats. A very small operation may run home plans, but check that business use is allowed, or buy a 5-seat business licence to leave room to grow.
ESET Small Business Security covers 5–25 seats, including work and personal devices and servers, without a management console. List price from R1,469.00 incl. VAT for 5 seats for 1 year. If someone manages your IT, or you're close to 25 devices, look at ESET PROTECT Entry instead. Our Small Business Security vs PROTECT Entry comparison covers the trade-off.
At this size central management stops being optional. ESET PROTECT gives you one console (cloud or on-prem) for deployment, policies and alerts. Entry starts from R3,110.75 incl. VAT for 5 seats for 1 year (list). Advanced adds full disk encryption and advanced threat defence. Complete adds cloud app protection, mail server security and patch management. PROTECT is sold online up to 100 seats; above that, request a quote.
Protects work and personal devices and servers: safe banking, anti-theft, password manager and encryption.
R1,469.00 incl. VAT
R1,277.39 excl. VAT
List price. Checkout, payment & licence delivery by ESET's e-store; promotions may apply there.
Need 26+ seats? Request a quote.
Modern multilayered endpoint protection with machine learning and easy cloud or on-prem management.
R3,110.75 incl. VAT
R2,705.00 excl. VAT
List price. Checkout, payment & licence delivery by ESET's e-store; promotions may apply there.
Need 101+ seats? Request a quote.
Free consumer products are usually licensed for home use only, and they lack business features such as central management. Check the licence terms of any free product before using it at work.
POPIA does not name specific products. Section 19 requires a responsible party to take appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information. Endpoint protection is one common part of that. Get legal advice for your own situation.
If staff read work email or customer data on phones, yes, include them. ESET's business plans cover Android; iOS options are more limited.
Purchases and product support are handled by ESET. If you want deployment help, more than 100 seats, or managed monthly protection, send a request through our quote form.
