The trend of increasing cyber-attacks reached an all-time high in 2021, and small businesses have become even bigger targets. New penetration techniques and evasion methods have made it much easier for bad actors and small businesses remain the least protected with the advanced cyber security methods needed to avoid catastrophe. With cyber attacks on businesses up 50% per week in 2021 and expected to rise this year, it has never been more critical for you to make a strong security stack your priority.
The increase in attacks is on all industries. Utilities had a 46% increase, manufacturing saw a 41% increase, and legal suffered a 68% increase in weekly attacks. While many large businesses suffered breaches, small and medium business attacks are becoming more frequent, targeted, and complex. According to Accenture’s Cost of Cybercrime Study, 43% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses, but only 14% are prepared to defend themselves.
Small businesses are the hardest hit by ransomware because of their lack of resources and security expertise. If you have a single IT person on staff, they are likely busy with routine maintenance and employee support resolution. While they may have basics like firewalls, backups, and antivirus enabled (and all are necessary), those will not be enough to protect your business from phishing and more sophisticated attacks. You are less likely to have someone on staff with the background or expertise needed in rapidly evolving cyber security solutions necessary to keep up with attack methods.
You may think that you cannot bear the costs of an in-house IT security expert and the stack of advanced security applications. Are you aware that during the first half of 2022, the average cost of an attack claim for a small business owner increased to $139,000, 58% higher than levels during the same period in 2021? Partnering with an MSSP (managed security services provider) will be far less than the costs of recovering from an attack.
MSSPs provide you with expertise in evolving cyber security and affordable access to enterprise security applications that had historically been out of reach to small businesses. Products like dark web monitoring (identifying when employee credentials are available to bad actors), managed detection and response (immediately know when a bad actor has breached your system for rapid response), and zero-trust software (layers of security barriers on people and specific actions within your network) are modern security solutions meeting the constantly evolving attacks.
October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. All month, we are offering a FREE risk assessment to our local small to mid-sized businesses. This confidential cybersecurity risk assessment will let you know if you are truly secured from bad actors or even rogue employees; identifying any gaps, verify your backups are sufficient, and let you know the next steps to improve your security posture.
