These days, small businesses are being targeted by cybercriminals more than ever. The digital age has opened up tremendous opportunities for making sales, delivering services, and reaching customers, yet it’s also opened up something huge for hackers, too—a lot of unsecured entry points.
Small companies are by no means the safest targets; in fact, without an established cybersecurity program, businesses of any size have a pretty big bull’s-eye painted on them. But unlike larger corporations, small businesses often can’t afford to set up even basic cybersecurity programs—and that makes them a preferred target for a lot of criminals.
Cybersecurity Threats For Small Business
Recent statistics paint a sobering picture of the cybersecurity landscape for small businesses. According to a report by the U.S. Small Business Administration, 88% of small business owners feel their business is vulnerable to a cyber attack.
This concern is well-founded, as 43% of cyber attacks target small businesses. Even more alarming is the fact that 60% of small companies go out of business within six months of a cyber attack.
Cybersecurity threats wear many masks, and each of them has a distinct implication for small businesses.
Phishing
One of the most common is phishing. Of course, phishing can be very sophisticated, and the emails with which the attackers try to fool your employees can look very much like emails you’d send to your employees if you were, say, trying to fool them. But phishing isn’t “one size fits all.” There are many different ways of carrying out phishing attacks, and attacking small businesses isn’t the only thing that phishers do.
Ransomware
Another common threat is ransomware. Ransomware is a type of malware that hackers use to get money from businesses. Once a hacker has successfully installed ransomware in a business’s computer system, that ransomware encrypts the business’s data. Then the hackers send the business a ransom note.
What are the Consequences of Data Breaches For Small Businesses?
Small businesses can face disastrous outcomes from a cybersecurity breach. The immediate costs of data recovery and ransom (if necessary) can deplete a business’s already scarce financial reserves. If a small business’s data breach exposes customer data, the business can face lawsuits.
And that’s not all—whether or not a lawsuit arises, the immediate loss of customer trust and the damage to the business’s long-term reputation can impact its bottom line. Cyberattacks are unfortunately becoming more numerous and more sophisticated, which makes them a very real risk for the small business that stores data.
How To Protect Your Business From Cyber Threats
Follow these essential steps to protect your business from cyber attacks:
Look at Your Security Posture
It is important to determine your current security posture before taking any steps to make your business more secure. This means evaluating the systems you currently have in place, identifying weak points, and understanding the likely threats you could face. Knowing this helps you prioritize your actions and decide where to devote resources.
Make sure to include the most vital assets—that is, the types of data a business collects and stores—in this assessment. For a business, a breach of customer data or financial records could be catastrophic. Make protection of the most vital asset your number-one cybersecurity priority.
Draft a Cybersecurity Plan
After analyzing your current security position, the next step is to draft a detailed cybersecurity plan. This document should contain what amounts to a playbook that can be followed to protect the business from cyber threats. A key component of such a plan should be a section dealing with employee training, for a business is only as strong as its weakest cyber-literate employee.
Employee Training and Controls
Part of any training session should revolve around the social engineering aspect of cyber threats, for much of what a bad actor tries to do involves getting a member of the business to take an action they otherwise wouldn’t have taken had they known the true reason behind it. Another large part of the plan should involve access controls—who can get into what data and when.
Incident Response For Small Businesses
And then there’s an incident response: What do you do if something happens?
Invest in Protective Tools
Small enterprises must safeguard themselves from cybersecurity risks. This can be achieved by investing in basic protective tools. Firewalls, antivirus software, and intrusion detection systems can collectively add another layer of security.
These tools monitor network activity and can block threats before they reach vulnerable parts of IT systems. However, no set of protective tools can work without first barricading the most obvious entry points.
Data encryption, for instance, prevents cybercriminals from interpreting intercepted information. This is a must for all companies that store or transmit sensitive information about customers.
Schedule Routine Audits
To uphold a robust cybersecurity stance, it’s vital to perform routine security audits. These audits are instrumental in pinpointing system vulnerabilities and in checking the effectiveness of a company’s various cybersecurity measures.
A nice touch is to have a third-party auditing firm (preferably one that specializes in cybersecurity) conduct your security audit from a really objective perspective. A security audit is so much more than just checking to see if the doors and windows are locked. Following are several key considerations that should form the basis of a security audit.
Create a Cybersecurity Culture
It is extremely important to create a culture of cybersecurity within your organization. It not only protects your business but also involves your employees as key components of your cybersecurity strategy.
Stay Updated on Cybersecurity
The ever-evolving field of cybersecurity presents a plethora of new threats that emerge with alarming regularity. Keeping yourself in the know about the latest shifts and nuances in the cybersecurity field enables you to adapt your protective strategies as needed.
A good first step is to subscribe to the many industry newsletters and listservs that are available. This guarantees that you won’t miss anything important. Another step is to attend webinars and participate in local events put on by the cybersecurity community—these are good opportunities to increase the context of your knowledge.
Finally, consider joining professional organizations or networks focused on our field. Their value in terms of insight and resources is hard to overstate.
Avoid Small Business Cyber Threats
As we observe Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it’s clear that the threat landscape for small businesses is more complex and dangerous than ever before.
It is not enough for a small business to rely solely on its technical infrastructure to be safe from cybersecurity threats. An effective defense strategy constitutes a lot more. It starts with understanding the nature of the threats to which the business is exposed. From there, a comprehensive strategy can be developed.
That strategy then needs to be woven into the very fabric of the organization. In other words, it is not just the IT staff that needs to be aware of cybersecurity. Everyone in the organization has a part to play.
The more “cyber-aware” the organization is, the less likely it is to be caught off guard when a real incident occurs. At ECN IT Solutions, we don’t just offer small businesses the technical know-how to navigate the cybersecurity landscape. We help them develop a comprehensive strategy that is relevant to their particular operation. Contact us today to chat about your business needs and how we can help.