Is your Small Business Cyber secure? And what can happen?

Even if you’re a small business you are still at risk…

Small businesses are 3 times more likely to be attacked by hackers than larger ones.

Barracuda Networks found that employees at small companies saw 350% more social engineering attacks than those at larger ones.

The main attack is Phishing causing over 80% of breaches.

A local example is in fact the Gloucestershire County Council.

What was the cyber-attack on Gloucester City Council?

The initial cyber-attack took place in December 2021

Benefit payments, planning applications and house sales were all delayed when Gloucester City Council was hit by hackers in 2021. A council report has now revealed the Museum of Gloucester is still being affected by the cyber incident.

In fact, in 2022 it was released that Gloucestershire is one of the least cyber-secure counties in the southwest.

Gloucestershire has been named as one of the least cyber-secure counties in the southwest, with over 24,000 cyber-attacks in the last 12 months.

Gloucestershire fell victim to 24,472 cyber-attacks in 2022 with 23,570 of those aimed at micro to small businesses and 903 aimed at medium to large businesses in the county.

The issues we often come across with Cyber security :

Small companies spend less on Cyber security as they juggle expenses. An antivirus programme isn’t enough to over your business. Even small businesses now store data on the cloud so the antivirus application on your computer is just one small layer. You need several more for adequate security measures.

“But it’s only me that runs the business why would they hack my company?”

If you have customers, you hold data such as Credit card numbers, SSNs, tax ID numbers, and email addresses are all valuable. Cybercriminals can sell these on the Dark Web. From there, other criminals use them for identity theft.

Some examples of data they are after are:

•             Customer records

•             Employee records

•             Bank account information

•             Emails and passwords

•             Payment card details

Small businesses can also be a way of access to larger businesses as we all have our wider connections in one way or another. Whether it is through digital marketing services they offer to larger companies, accounting services, or website management.

Often, we find that small businesses are just very unprepared for ransomware attacks. In 2022 about 63% of small business owners actually paid the ransom hoping they would get the key to decrypt the malware from the attackers. But this often either significantly and financially hits the business back or makes them bankrupt.

If you are a small business that is run by employees, you often won’t have time or money to train the employee in cybersecurity procedures. This is where phishing emails often catch out businesses as their employees open them without the correct training knowing what to spot.

Simple procedures such as not clicking links that aren’t trusted or password best practices are simple steps that are sometimes missed in training procedures.

We hope that we have outlined the threats that can arise for your business, and so that we can help you avoid these. We offer an all-in-one IT service consultancy to improve your business’ security to accompany your IT support and disaster prevention.

If you are concerned if your business is safe from cyber-attacks, get in touch and we can create a security and disaster prevention plan, ensuring all your hardware and data are safe. Call us on 01452 222 000 or email us at hello@pearceit.co.uk.