Is Cybercrime a Problem for Small Businesses?
When you think of cybercrime attacks, it’s natural to focus on high-profile cases. In such events, a lot of money is spent on recovery efforts by the victims, and the general public is impacted due to the loss/theft of data. They’re a big deal, obviously.
However, for every big cybercrime attack, there are also thousands of attacks on smaller organizations that go unheard. According to the 2018 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 58% of cyber attack victims were small businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
Why Do Cyber Criminals Target Small Organizations?
A cyber criminal can profit more off of successfully hacking a large organization. So, why are they targeting small organizations?
The key word here is “successfully.” Large companies know they have a lot to lose. That’s why they’re constantly reinforcing their defences. Getting past their defenses is no longer an easy task, and many cyber criminals don’t have the expertise to pull it off.
As a result, many cyber criminals look elsewhere, where defenses are minor. They target those who don’t assume they’ll be targeted. By and large, that means small businesses and organizations.
How Are Cyber Criminals Infiltrating Small Businesses?
Cyber criminals are using a different strategy to infiltrate small organizations—compared to with large organizations.
Rather than concentrating on one specific organization, cyber criminals target small organizations en masse by orchestrating mass spam email campaigns. They’re looking to get lucky, waiting for whenever someone downloads an attachment or goes to a link from one of their malicious emails.
Once they’ve infiltrated your company, cyber criminals have many options. They can stay hidden, silently stealing private user data and selling it. Or, they can use a ransomware attack to encrypt your data and request a ransom to be paid.
[Related: Ransomware Back-up Strategies for Businesses]
Protecting Your Organization From Cyber Attacks
This is no easy truth to swallow. We would prefer that cyber crime is not a problem, too. So, what can you do about it?
Understand that every individual in your organization is a potential entry point for a cyber criminal. Providing cybersecurity training for employees is the first step to protecting your organization—but it’s easily the most vital.
