Small Businesses “Get It” when it comes to Cybersecurity

As we wrap up Cybersecurity Awareness Month, keep in mind that cybercriminals are indiscriminate in who they attack. Large business, small business, it doesn’t matter. Small businesses, it seems, gets that.

In fact, 87% of respondents in a recent Better Business Bureau report respond that they know being a small business doesn’t make them exempt from cyberattack.

Yet even knowing size is irrelevant, small businesses respond that lack of resources and understanding are the top reasons they’re underinvested in cybersecurity. However, nearly 80% of the small business respondents take at least the minimum precautions of having firewall and antivirus programs in place, and to a lesser degree (around 50%) provide employee education.

More concerning? At least 15% report that they have no cybersecurity insurance and only 17% have either an internal or an external individual or team “explicitly charged” with information security. That means the majority of small businesses also remain cybersecurity do-it-yourselfers.

5 Cybersecurity Risk Management Tips for Small Businesses:

1. Treat cybersecurity as an ongoing issue, not one that has a beginning and an end.
2. Get a thorough, top-to-bottom security risk analysis. It’s the best single investment you can make in your cybersecurity.
3. Look at where the vulnerabilities are, fix them and create the process that keeps it from happening again.
4. Keep up the training! Bad privacy and security habits show up everywhere, from the front desk to the business owner. And anyone can click a bad email link.
5. Exercise caution and avoid accessing business networks and systems outside of a secured, VPN network. Public wifi and even secured wifi is often open to malware and hacking.

Need more tips? We've created a list of over 25 of our most helpful cybersecurity tips to help keep you secure from cybercriminals.

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Incremental yet significant efforts like the five above can make a big difference for small businesses putting together a privacy and information security program. In fact, many Fortune 500 businesses would do well to be as proactive. Because if ever there was a prime example that large size doesn’t equal better security, we need simply look at behemoth Equifax. The credit giant’s mammoth data breach demonstrates that the larger you are, the harder you can fall – and the larger swath of people and their sensitive data you can take down with you.

Are you interested in learning more about how to protect your data? Contact us for a complimentary consultation with one of our security experts who will be happy to discuss your data protection needs further.