My Business is too Small to be Hacked

We hear it regularly, and it seems like the statement never gets old: “We are just too small to be of value to the bad guys; it doesn’t make sense for us to worry about security.” Yet, small businesses (SMBs) make up 43% of cyberattacks annually, and have fewer than 250 employees. Even worse, only 14% of the SMBs were prepared to face an attack or address the fallout. So, this means that 43 SMBs of 100 will be attacked, and six (6) will be in a position to defend themselves. This means 37 of our 43 SMBs will suffer as little as $800 to $653,000 in potential damage.

So, these points are provided not to throw you into unnecessary numbers or scary statistics, but to provide a base for our discussion. You are hackable, and the size of your business is not a factor in whether you get targeted or not. Threat actors care about one thing: making money, and if you are the $800 catch, and they nail a few more that week, it is a pretty good haul for the work. These are not one-and-done instances either; in most cases, when a threat actor compromises a system, they typically victimize the business again within 12 months after their initial success.

Being a Hard Target

Threat actors often do not want to jump through hoops to hack your business. They want to send emails with links, get you to provide credentials, or click something that gets them in with minimal effort. You are a statistic to them, one of the 43 SMBs they aim to steal from this week so that they can move on to the next. The best thing you can do is make the job too difficult to be worth the money. Being a hardened (well-defended) target reduces the likelihood that phishing attacks or malware will majorly impact your business. Implementing controls like multifactor authentication (MFA) on systems significantly reduces how a threat actor could use a stolen password. Go further and implement the proper endpoint protection with proactive security services, and your business will have greatly reduced its attack surface.

Ongoing Success

Your business needs a partner who can provide IT and cybersecurity services and act as a guide to help you reduce your cyber risks, ensuring that threat actors' efforts in attacking your business are minimal and that their methods will not provide them with a return on their time. Cybersecurity is not just a set of tools or automation; it is a combination of people, processes, and technology that work together to ensure a business can achieve its goals while minimizing its risks.

IntelliSystems has over 30 years of experience serving small businesses and ensuring they are ready to face the modern and evolving threat landscape. Providing clients with a blend of services that allows them to address the most critical risks immediately and team members who engage in ongoing consulting ensure that both current and future threats are accounted for and defended against. Contact us today for more details on how you can reduce your business risk by working with IntelliSystems.