Many small businesses don’t realize just how attractive they are to cybercriminals. Knowing the most common cyberthreats every small business should know is essential for staying one step ahead.
This article breaks down the top threats—like phishing scams and ransomware—and explains how they can affect your business.
You’ll also find straightforward tips to help you protect sensitive information, keep your operations running smoothly, and lower your risk of falling victim to cyberattacks.
Why Small Businesses Are Prime Targets
Have you think your business is too small to be on the radar of the cybercriminals? Well, this is exactly why your business is at risk! Small businesses do not commonly have dedicated security teams or large IT budgets, so it is easier for cybercriminals to attack their weaknesses and deploy out-of-date systems.
Hackers know this, which is why they target them—because they are so easy to breach. Many small businesses store valuable data, like customer information, payment details, or proprietary business processes.
Once a hacker breaches that data, they can often sell it for profit, or worse, use it against you in subsequent attacks. Small businesses can face dire consequences from compromising their data including financial loss or potential irreparable reputational damage—that’s why awareness and preventative measures are so important!
Malware
Malware is any software designed to disrupt operations, damage computer systems or steal data. This is an umbrella term which includes many different forms of cyberthreats, like:
- Viruses – programs that replicate themselves and spread from computer-to-computer
- Spyware – software that secretly monitors and gathers personal information
- Adware – software that uncontrollably displays advertisements
- Trojan horses – malware disguised as legitimate software
- Ransomware – software that blocks access to your data until you pay a ransom
To protect your business from Malware, you will want to ensure you have the highest level of anti-malware protections in place. You will also want to provide training for your team on the common types of malware and make them aware of the potential threats of clicking on links, websites, or files of the unknown! Preventing an infection is key! You may enact these and many other cybersecurity measures on your own, or you can partner with a managed IT services provider (MSP) that can do it all and relieve the burden of worrying about cybersecurity. Otherwise, you can relax knowing that someone else is managing these cyber risks for your organization.
Phishing
Phishing is an act of trickery where cyber criminals pose as someone you trust to send you fraudulent messages to trick you into providing your personal or financial information. Phishing schemes often results in identity theft, financial loss, and data breaches.
You can help mitigate your business’ susceptibility to phishing schemes, by offering employee security awareness training. In the training, you can teach employees about how to identify common signs of phishing. These signs include:
- Urgent requests for personal information – Legitimate companies hardly ever request sensitive information by email.
- Suspicious links or attachments – You can hover over a link with your mouse to see the real URL. If you do not know the sender, do not open the attachments.
- Poor grammar and spelling – Many phishing emails have spelling or grammatical mistakes..
- Generic greetings – If the email starts with “Dear Customer” or “Dear User” it is likely phishing birth.
- Imitation of trusted brands – Cyber criminals will impersonate well-known companies to gain the trust of their victim.
If you can help your employees identify all of these warning signs, you are significantly reducing the chance of falling victim to a phishing scheme.
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)
A DDoS attack occurs when attackers send overwhelming amounts of traffic to your server that causes your server to crash or makes it inaccessible. Disruption may cause serious consequences to your business operations due to a loss of access for your customers and loss of function for your employees.
DDoS attacks are sometimes very difficult to defend against due to the volume of concurrent attacks coming from multiple sources. Some attacks cause continuous service disruption for days, or even weeks before normal operations resume. An MSP can assist your business via continuous server monitoring, rapid threat detection and response to malicious traffic, and can establish a comprehensive response plan that minimizes service disruption.
Password attacks
In a password attack, cyber criminals are attempting to access your systems by stealing or cracking your passwords. This may involve brute force attacks by trying many combinations of passwords, or using social engineering by getting people to divulge their passwords. If your business allows weak, or repeated passwords as the norm, your business is a target to anyone trying to launch password attacks. If cyber criminals gain access to your systems from this attack, they can steal your information, install malware, or complete other harmful actions.
To help protect your business from being attacked via password attack methods, implement password security to require all employees to create strong, unique passwords. And, when available, enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever possible. MFA requires you to create an account with more than just a password, meaning when a cyber criminal captures an employees password – the cyber criminal will also need to have the form of identity to access the system. New Threats Like Ransomware and Social Engineering
Emerging Threats Like Ransomware and Social Engineering
Traditional threats are already dangerous, but there are also new, more sophisticated cyberattacks aimed at small businesses that are increasing in prevalence. Let’s check the most common ones:
Ransomware
Ransomware attacks corrupt your information and usually act by asking for a payment to get that information back. This is different from viruses that may just damage systems. Ransomware is quick and can shut you down overnight. A small business like yours is considered a prime target because, in all likelihood, they will act quickly to regain access.
Social Engineering
Social engineering, sometimes known as, “impersonation,” will trick employees to give up confidential information or access to systems. Whether this occurs through pretexting, baiting or impersonating tech support, an unwitting employee simply opens the door to an intruder. The main defense for social engineering is raising awareness and training employees.
How to Assess Your Business’s Cyber Risk
First, identify your risks, so you will be able to manage security efforts relative to what is important to your business. This means: identify all digital assets of your organization (i.e. all data, devices, networks and applications).
Second, look at all the threats (e.g. malware, phishing, insider threats, etc.) without attempting to conflate the risk. Consider the probability of each threat disrupting your business and how each threat affects your organization’s operations. Constructing a high/medium/low simple risk matrix can assist with categorizing and prioritizing risk. And DON’T forget about the human factor. Yes, they are your team, but also your worst enemy if they’re not trained in cybersecurity and general IT.
You should assume that employee relationships represent the weakest point in your organization. When you have completed the risk outlines, use them to determine where and how much to invest in security tools, training and policies.
Best Practices to Defend Against Common Attacks
Let reduce your business’ risk exposures:
- Utilize strong, unique passwords for every account and multi-factor authentication (MFA) to every account.
- Use a reputable anti-virus software
- Update all applications, systems and devices.
- Regularly back-up your data, and have a back-up plan that is not only secure but preferably off-site.
- Educate your employees on phishing and social engineering, as human error is a major contributor to breaches.
- Restrict and control the user access based on their role
- Make sure they are aware of abnormal behavior
FAQs About Cybersecurity for Small Businesses
1. Why do hackers target small businesses instead of large corporations?
Hackers consider small businesses a target because they have fewer security resources and most do not have dedicated IT staff. Large brands do have much larger payouts; but they also have more advanced defenses. Small business have valuable data pertaining to people, including payment information and customer records, and they operate on a lower tolerance for downtime which will result in a small business paying a ransom sooner.
2. What’s the most common cybersecurity threat to small businesses?
Phishing is the most common threat. Phishing, the act of convincing users to give up information such as passwords, click and links to malicious websites, or download malware. Since Phishing is human error, training employees and having strong email filters are a must for a strong defense.
3. How often should small businesses back up their data?
At a minimum, data should be backed-up daily, and even more often for key files or real time systems. Automated back-ups, using secure off-site or cloud storage, will allow the user to restore its systems quickly after a ransomware attack, or system hardware failure.
4. Do I need cybersecurity insurance for my small business?
Yes, cybersecurity insurance can be a good investment, and can help with the cost of a data breach, legal fees, customer notifications, recovery services, etc. Cybersecurity insurance is even more helpful if your business collects sensitive customer information or relies on digital assets.
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