At the beginning of 2020, it was predicted that security threats against small businesses will be close to 70%. With this number the total possible cost of attack would be around $5 trillion, that’s too much if you ask me. And if it came true then, $5 trillion dollars would be paid by the small business owners. So, are you ready to pay the price for the crime you never committed? No, right? To protect your business from the cyber-attack you need to understand how cyber-attacks are going to affect small businesses.
The prime effect of stolen data on small businesses
There are two ways how cyber-attacks can affect small businesses first; if they attack with something known as Ransomeware. Such attacks can leave the render systems useless for one week or two. So, if small businesses couldn’t provide the services, they do to generate the revenue then, they will be dead fishes in the sea if they are out of business for one or two weeks. This alone is enough to chase them away from the market.
The second method is- data theft. It is the primary way how small businesses will be forced to pay for the cyber-attack. Typically for every record that has been stolen, small businesses have to pay the credit monitoring for all those records. For instance; there was a clinic in India that was literally put out of business by an attacker who stole the 20, 0000 patient information. The clinic had to pay the credit monitoring money of all those 20, 000 patient records. I am not sure the amount the credit money but it is estimated around $20 per person so, in total the clinic has to pay the $20 X20,000 = $40,000 which is a hefty amount for a small clinic. So, eventually, it ran out of business.
Who are these hackers?
Although you cannot immediately identify a malicious hacker- most of them are black hat hackers who steal, alter and destroy data and system for their personal gain. They stay active on social media and other platforms to search for targets they believe can offer the highest with the least chances of getting caught. Generally, small businesses are the easiest to pray in the river.
Why cyber attackers target small businesses?
You may find yourself asking “why do attackers go after small business. After all, we don’t earn that much then, why us?” there are two reasons behind this:
First: Small business often lacks a mature cybersecurity program
Second: small businesses don’t have a separate staff to work upon the cybersecurity
The attackers are well versed with this piece of information and understand they can easily break into smaller businesses compared to large businesses. In most cases smaller businesses have direct or indirect links with large businesses so, attackers can leverage this relationship to attack larger businesses.
Read Here: Precaution To Avoid Cyber Attacks
What you can do to protect your small businesses?
At ProICT Training, we believe that small businesses play a huge role in economic growth. So, it is crucial to protect small businesses from cyber-attacks that affect their revenue and growth aspects. Therefore, we offer Cyber Security Training to prepare you and your employees to prevent or reduce the effects of the cyber-attacks on small businesses. Contact our experts to learn more about it!
