Why your SMB is more at risk than you thought
| Cyber Security in Small Medium Businesses 

With 43% of Cyber-attacks targeting small businesses, cyber security has become vitally important to your small medium business. Being aware of cyber security and the potential threats it can have towards your SMB is crucial. Ensuring your data is safe, secure and protected is vital as 60% of SMB’s that are victims of a Cyber-attack go out of business within six months.  

Why Cyber Security?  

Cyber Security is the protection of data/information and technology from Cyber threats. It ensures your data is secure and guaranteed, avoiding potential hackers. Just in 2020 alone there were 3.2 billion malware attacks, 2.3 trillion intrusion attempts worldwide (according to the 2020 SonicWall midyear update). All of this tell us that cyber security is essential to save your business from falling victim.  

How might your SMB get cyber attacked? 

The biggest myth of small medium businesses is that ‘it won’t happen to me’, or that ‘we’re too small’ that ‘there’s nothing worth taking’, but in fact SMB’s are among those that are at most risk. Here are the most common ways your business could be hit: 

• Phishing – is a Cyber crime which targets individuals through email, telephone, or text by pretending to be a legitimate institution asking for confidential data such as bank details, passwords etc. 
• Ransomware – is a type of software which cyber criminals use to block you from in order to retrieve your data. Once this has been done, they will encrypt your files on your system and black mail you to pay a ransom in order to get your data back.  
• Data leakage – is unauthorised transmission of data within an organisation.
• Hacking – gaining and accessing into unauthorised computer systems. 
• Insider threat – when an employee uses their access to computer systems to exploit the business. 

Cyber threats can ruin your reputation and lose the trust of your customers. This can have a detrimental effect on your business if it can’t recover. The damage of a cyber threat is an enormous – from theft of confidential data, to paying a ransom, to destroying your business. 

Why your SMB (small medium business) is more at risk? 

Cyber Security has become a crucial element within a business and the need is ever growing. During 2020 and the Covid 19 pandemic, we saw a huge amount of businesses fall victim to these attacks. Many SMB’s still believe that they are too small to be hacked, and think it won’t happen to them, however statistics have proved otherwise. 

Attackers believe that SMBs are an ideal target as they are more likely to have weaker cyber security strategies and software, nor do they have huge resourced to train staff on security awareness. Small medium businesses usually aren’t aware of the potential threat they could be facing and the drastic effect which could result if they don’t have a strategy in place.  

The main aspect of having strong cyber security measures in place are to prevent hackers retrieving important and valuable data which could potentially put your business at risk. It is to achieve these three elements; confidentiality, integrity, and availability (which is known as the CIA Triad). 

Cyber Security protects your business in ways that you can’t.. 

The biggest thing about strong cyber security is that it protects your business in ways that you cannot. You can remain at ease knowing all your data is being monitored and stored safely. As well as it protecting your business, it also protects your customers ensuring that none of their confidential data is breached. Your customers will be much more trusting and at ease with your business having their confidential data by knowing you have cyber security solutions in place. 

In addition to this, it allows employees to work safely and securely. By having a cyber security solution in place you drastically reduce the risk of disasters or breaches enabling your employees to work productively and safely and keeping your business in action and secure. 

Cyber Security Tips for your SMB  

• Passwords – 63% of data breaches happened due to weak passwords, therefore it’s important to continuously change your passwords and making them difficult to break. Better still, having a password manager can drastically reduce the risk.
• Limit employee access to data – Policies and procedures are put in place to block employees from having full access over data. This reduces the risk of insider threat and employees will only be able to access a certain amount of data. 
• Ensure you have backup copies of important data – Constantly backing up your data to the cloud is crucial! 
• Ensure employees undertake security training and awareness. Education and training can help staff to be aware of potential threats, and understand cyber security solutions to remain secure. 
• Use Firewall- By using a firewall it provides a barrier between your data and cyber criminals from accessing it. 

Cyber Security it critical within any business especially SMB’s and the risk is only increasing. Get in contact with us today at myitdepartment.ie to discuss how we can keep you safe, secure and protected at all times. Book a free cyber security review and make your steps to a secure business.