It is common to hear about cyberattacks conducted against large-scale organizations; however, as it turns out, smaller organizations are often at a greater risk of being targeted by cybercriminals. Usually, these businesses take cyber threats lightly, and why wouldn’t they? After all, why would a hacker group target a small-scale business when they could steal millions from multinational companies?
The Small Business Guide to Cyber Security states that 76% of recorded cyberattacks are conducted on organizations with less than 100 employees. Cybercriminals see small and medium businesses (SMBs) as more vulnerable than big companies. This is because SMBs have a lack of cybersecurity knowledge, ability, and finances available to them to protect themselves as effectively as their large-scale counterparts do. Cyberattacks can have devastating consequences on a small business as they can lead to them going out of business mere months after the attack.
Most attacks on SMBs go unreported
During the COVID-19 pandemic, SMBs were targeted more frequently. These attacks are usually not reported as the businesses themselves are unaware of when they have fallen victim to an attack and typically don’t have identifying tools in place to monitor this.
They are not helped by the fact that hackers are now using unique and more sinister methods of carrying out their attacks. The top threats small organizations face include malware attacks, data breaches, phishing attacks, and identity theft.
Some cybersecurity risks consist of data breaches where an organization’s entire data could be stolen and sold or misused online by hackers. Infrastructure risk represents another threat as any unprotected device could be used as an entry point for attackers who can access the organization’s networks through those.
However, the gravest threat is that threat actors can easily take advantage of an employees’ lack of knowledge regarding cybersecurity and use it to their advantage when carrying out their attacks.
How to protect small businesses from cyberattacks?
A number of precautions were provided by the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) with regards to how small businesses can save themselves from falling victim to cyberattacks. These measures included:
- Monitor your email carefully, and do not open any unsolicited or suspicious attachments or links from unknown accounts.
- Keep your operating system and software updated to the latest versions
- Use strong passwords/passphrases and use password management tools to help you keep track of them
- Enable multi-factor authentication on all your devices.
- Keep a backup of all your files and data.
The above precautions, though effective, may not be sufficient as small businesses need to learn the importance of assessing cyber risks. This is no easy task, especially for new businesses and those without many resources or finances. The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) provides a set of guidelines for SMEs n the security of personal data processing, which follows four basic steps:
- Defining the processing operation and its context: In the first step, the data processed, systems involved, and their relevant context are all appraised
- Understanding and evaluating its impact: The potential risks and their effects on business are identified and assessed.
- Identifying possible threats and probability of their occurrence: This involves the company analyzing the threats of personal data processing and assessing how likely they are to occur.
- Evaluation of risk: Finally, risk evaluation is done by accounting for the effect of personal data processing operation and the likelihood of the relevant threat occurring.
After the risk level has been assessed, the business can choose and adopt the necessary security protocols. However, more needs to be done to protect SMBs from cyberattacks. Awareness campaigns need to be carried out by governments which can lead to a safer and more beneficial future for all of us.