Security Threats For Small Businesses

If you are a small or medium-size enterprise owner, and you think that you cannot be targeted by cybercriminals because you are in a business that is too small or has low-value data to attract attack, then you are one of those who will likely fall prey to those in the near future. In a Data Breach Investigations Study conducted by Verizon on 2012, it was revealed that of the 621 recorded data breaches, 31% were against business with less than a hundred employees while a staggering 50% were against those with less than 1000 employees. A study conducted by the same company the following year further shows that the number of attacks rose by a significant number.

These data clearly reveal one thing: small and medium-size businesses are increasing becoming targets to cybercrimes. 

One of the primary reasons for this is that Small and Medium-size business owners do not realize how attackers can benefit from breaching their systems thus they remain lenient and complacent. Unlike large companies that can hire a team composed of up to a hundred or more IT experts to protect themselves, SMEs cannot afford those and have systems that are even unprotected from simple threats. Contact your preferred IT services provider to do a security evaluation to protect your business.

There are two known ways that attackers could do to your system: they can steal valuable customer information or use programs that allow them to manipulate the files and the system itself.

Businesses that keep customer-related data such as credit card information are most likely to suffer loss of profit and credibility due to this.  Attackers can easily use that information to steal money from the clients or enter into a transaction without the clients’ consent.

Another form of attack is through malwares. Attackers can plant spywares which allow them to collect data and manipulate the system. Because most enterprises either merge with others thus become a large one or are merged with large companies, attackers who realize this potential wait for the right opportunity—sometimes even for years. When two companies merge together with their systems, they begin to operate without the company’s knowledge and usually succeed in this endeavor.

A more robust form of attack is through ransomwares where attackers encrypt data within the system or the system itself and ask for an amount for the encryption to be lifted or removed. Because the system and the data contained in computers are important in the transactions of a business, they are often lured to pay an amount. In such situation, even laptop repair vendor or data recovery service provider may face challenges in recovering the data as the file content is already encrypted by the hackers.

The rule of thumb in protecting an enterprise against an attack is to never think that you cannot be a victim. Hackers and cyber-criminals operate in such a way that most of us can never understand. Just because you think you cannot be a target, it does not mean you cannot be a victim.