Small to Medium-sized businesses are the most common target of cybercriminals, making up 62% of all reported cyber attacks.

Take a moment to let that sink in…

The Office of Advocacy claims small businesses, with 500 employees or less, make up over 99% of all US employer firms. That’s a big chunk of the economic market. There are several reasons why this is happening, but let’s discuss the number one reason. Most small business owners don’t think of their business as a “juicy” enough target for cyber attackers.

News headlines report big businesses like Target and Yahoo getting hacked. It’s obvious to many, why they were targeted by attackers. Large businesses have network servers containing millions of records just waiting to be hacked. With targets containing that much data, why would they waste time on your small business? You don’t have nearly the same amount of data the large businesses do.

Targeting the Unobservant and Weak

They are targeting smaller businesses because they are easier prey. Today’s cyber attacker is a little smarter than the Wolf from the Three Little Pigs. This Wolf walks past the brick house with its layered security systems to find weaker houses to attack. Small businesses often have weak security defenses because they don’t invest in strong security measures like large businesses do.

These weak defenses make for an easy dinner for the Wolf and a very bad day for the Pigs. According to the Ponemon Institute’s 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study, the average cost of a data breach is $221 per record for financial businesses and $355 per record for healthcare businesses. Multiply that amount by the number of records your small business has and it’s easy to see how a cyber attack could be detrimental.

Financial Hemorrhage

Recently, a Pediatric Healthcare Clinic in Arlington, Texas reported a data breach from a ransomware attack that affected more than 33,000 patient records. Processes in place locked down critical data but the clinic still lost several records during the breach. A computer forensic investigator was required to investigate the details of the breach to fully assess the damage. The clinic offered free credit monitoring and identity theft protection for all patients affected by the breach. Funding the investigation, paying for credit monitoring services, and preventing future attacks will cost the clinic enormously.

Many business experts believe the loss of business relationships to be an even greater factor to small businesses when assessing the ramifications of a data breach. Small businesses depend on their reputation within their local community. A loss of trust can create long-term effects hard for experts to measure.

Keeping the Wolf Out

Several different strategies and methods exist for building a secure network for your business. You can begin by:

All of these strategies have pros and cons that need to be considered when choosing the right solutions for your own business.

Be Ready for Battle

Cybersecurity is a huge industry filled with many security strategies designed to meet the needs of each business. You can begin to protect your business by: 

1. Understanding the very real threat a cyber attack can pose to your business.
2. Determine what risks you can control.
3. Plan how your business will respond in the event of an attack and how to recover from it. 
   

It’s not a matter of if an attack will happen, only a matter of when.