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Cyberattacks can disrupt your business. This primer can help you stand up to bad actors.
According to Internet Live Stats, more than 145TB of internet traffic takes place each second. As such, the internet has become a digital Silk Road that facilitates nearly every facet of modern life. And just as ancient merchants were sometimes beset by bandits on the actual Silk Road, today’s entrepreneurs can easily find themselves under attack from cyber malcontents working to derail companies through theft and disruption.
You may not know when an attack could occur, but taking proper precautions can hamper or completely stymie a hacker’s attempt to access your network. We’ve compiled info on why your small business could be at risk of a cyberattack and how to avoid a compromising situation with cybersecurity best practices.
According to Verizon‘s 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report, 46% of breaches impacted small and midsize businesses. Surprised? Don’t be. When it comes to starting a small business, new owners have many decisions to make and often leave cybersecurity measures by the wayside. Unless they focus on shoring up their defenses, they may inadvertently end up leaving points of entry wide open for hackers. That can be a major problem.
A joint report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute found that the average cost of a data breach increased by 10% in 2021, and Verizon’s data indicates that the cost of 95% of incidents for SMBs fell between $826 and $653,587. What’s more, these businesses often lack the resources to defend themselves successfully from attacks.
Stephen Cobb, an independent researcher and consultant who studies technology and risk, said that small businesses fall into hackers’ cybersecurity sweet spot, since they “have more digital assets to target than an individual consumer has but less security than a larger enterprise.”
Couple that with the costs associated with implementing proper defenses, and you have a situation primed for intrusions. Since security breaches can be devastating to small businesses, owners are more likely to pay a ransom to get their data back. SMBs can also merely be a stepping stone for attackers to gain access to larger businesses.
Regardless of their target, hackers generally aim to gain access to a company’s sensitive data, such as consumers’ credit card information. With enough identifying information, attackers can then exploit an individual’s identity in any number of damaging ways.
One of the best ways to prepare for an attack is to understand the different methods hackers generally use to gain access to that information. While this is by no means an exhaustive list of potential threats, since cybercrime is a constantly evolving phenomenon, you should at least be aware of the following types of attacks.
As more companies grow their businesses online, the need for robust cybersecurity measures grows in lockstep. According to Cybersecurity Ventures‘ 2022 Cybersecurity Almanac, worldwide spending on such products will increase to a cumulative $1.75 trillion for the period 2021 to 2025, up from $1 trillion cumulatively for 2017 to 2021.
Small businesses looking to ensure their networks have at least a fighting chance against many attacks should be open to installing basic security software.
Antivirus solutions are the most common and will defend against most types of malware. A hardware- or software-based firewall can provide an added layer of protection by preventing an unauthorized user from accessing a computer or network. Most modern operating systems, including Windows 10 and 11, come with a firewall program built in. [Consider these five free (and legal) antivirus solutions for small businesses.]
Cobb, the security consultant, suggests businesses invest in three additional security measures along with those more surface-level tools.
As you begin considering your options and the security measures you’d like to implement, it’s generally a good idea to run a risk assessment, either by yourself or with the help of an outside firm.
In addition to implementing software-based solutions, small businesses should adopt certain technological best practices and policies to shore up security vulnerabilities. Your IT manager will play a significant role in all of these, so make sure this team member is up to the challenge.
Even though cybercrime is getting more sophisticated, so are the solutions. There are more than a dozen ways to secure your business’s devices and network and an increasing number of methods for secure file sharing. Even if you’re hacked, you can recover from a data breach. As threats continue to evolve, so will ways to combat them. By no means should you be complacent or take a lax approach to protecting your business, but as the word implies, cybersecurity is designed to keep your business digitally secure. So rest assured that if you follow the best practices, your company will likely be better off.
Jeremy Bender, Andreas Rivera, Sammi Caramela and Nicole Fallon contributed to the writing and reporting in this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.