It’s not unusual for small business owners to think they are flying under the radar with cyberattacks. They feel their company is “too small” for hackers to worry about, so they don’t put the attention and budget into cybersecurity as they should.
This way of thinking has caused many shocked business owners to reel from a cybersecurity breach, account takeover, or another incident. Many of which have costs that are too much for a small company to bear.
If you’ve been neglecting your IT security or think you’re not in danger of being hacked, you may want to continue reading to find out why small businesses are actually more vulnerable than larger companies to attacks.
You may think that cybercriminals are going to go after large companies because they have more data and secrets to steal. But statistics don’t bear that out.
A recent report by cybersecurity products provider Barracuda shows that small businesses are over 3x more likely to be targeted by cyber attackers than larger companies.
The analysis of millions of emails across all sized companies found that those businesses with less than 100 employees received 350% more social engineering attacks than companies or larger enterprise corporations.
Hackers often target smaller businesses because they are easier to breach than larger companies. So small business owners actually need to be on high alert as they are squarely in the crosshairs of cybercriminals.
Running a business means making hard decisions on where to invest your money. Some business owners are working hard to grow their company and don’t have a lot of extra cash to spend on technology infrastructure.
This can cause IT security to suffer and have devastating consequences for business owners. Due to the high cost of falling victim to a cyberattack, it’s much more expensive NOT to invest in proper cybersecurity.
One data breach could mean the end of your business. Approximately 60% of small businesses have to shut down their company for good within 6-months of a cybersecurity incident.
When the costs are this high, investing in decent protection for your technology is a small price to pay to keep your business healthy and operating.
It’s common for small business owners to put off cybersecurity investments because they don’t think that criminals are looking for them. They may think, “How is some large criminal group going to know about my little shop?”
The thing is cybercriminals come in all shapes and sizes too, just like small businesses. Novice hackers can easily sign up for what’s called Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) and get the tools they need to launch a ransomware attack nicely packaged. They can even get hacker customer support too!
This multiplies the number of cyber criminals out there trying to make a quick buck. And small businesses are often what they’ll go after because it seems more realistic that they could hack a “mom and pop” business than a large corporation.
Supply chain attacks are done on companies that supply either goods or services to a lot of other people or companies. The attack on Colonial Pipeline, shutting down a critical supply of oil and gas in 2021, was a supply chain attack. The ransomware attack on Kaseya (a software provider of remote tools to MSPs) was also a supply chain attack.
In the case of the Kaseya attack, a large software company was targeted by attackers, but approximately 1500 small businesses had their systems infected as a result. The software company’s remote management application was infected, which trickled down to Kaseya’s IT business customers, and to their managed services customers.
So, even if your small business isn’t the entity being targeted by a hacker, a supply chain attack can still cause your company to be breached as collateral damage.
Small business owners often mistakenly think that they have nothing an attacker could want, so they’re safe from being targeted. Even the smallest, one or two-person small business has something that a hacker can make money from.
Cybercriminals also go after individuals for credit card information and login details, so why wouldn’t they also go after a small business? Here are some of the ways they can make money by hacking your business:
Managed security services are a necessity for any company, no matter how big or small. Digital Crisis can help your Houston area business with a tailored plan that fits your budget and keeps your company safe.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 713-965-7200 or reach us online.
