The internet has brought a lot of gifts with it for small and medium-sized businesses. That includes connectivity with the whole world and showcasing their businesses through the internet easily. However, it has also come with some bad cybersecurity risks get hacked is one of the most common ones in small businesses. In the year 2018 alone, there is an alarming number of people who get hacked due to a lack of culture and awareness about cybersecurity.
There is no doubt that the year 2019 has been the most astonishing year from the perspective of security breaches. There is a number of small firms that are facing issues related to security breaches. The reason behind these security breaches is due to the lack of awareness about the basic cybersecurity mechanism. The small offices are considered to be the targeted area for many hackers. Hackers know that small offices or firms do not have a dedicated IT department that only works to ensure the security of small businesses.
A special type of attack known as ransomware is a threat to all types of small and medium businesses. Almost 86% percent of the small businesses are recently targeted and 21% of attacks include ransomware. The report of Datto’s State about Ransomware includes the key findings that the small businesses will have a higher number of attacks for the next two years. In three ransomware attacks, less than one is reported by small and medium business firms.
If a person is having a small business, it is quite important to know the threats of cybersecurity. A critical issue about small firms is the lack of financial capacity to avoid such threats. However, knowing about the threats culture can effectively increase the security of your business. The following hacking and attacking are used in order to exploit the security of small business:
- Phishing
The technique or attack of phishing is the most common that is used to target small businesses. It is an approach of social engineering attack where hackers utilize their knowledge power to obtain the information they needed. The approach of phishing includes generating a link, attachment or clickable frame that pretends to be a person and tends to share a false story. The targeted entity directly approaches the in response to the false story without verifying it. As a result, all the credentials are taken by the hacker.
Threat to business from Phishing
This type of attack might occurs in a small business environment due to the keenness of employees to click on everything. The employees of firms always tend to click on each and everything to experience something new. However, clicking on a suspicious link ends the user from a different type of problem. A company might not be able to access their documents and lost control over the systems.
Prevention
Prevention from Phishing is quite simple that when you get a click or attachment from an unknown must be ignored. The action must also be reported as spam directly, in order to highlight it to the standard organization.
- Ransomware
It is a kind of malware and got its own section due to the damage it creates for small businesses. Ransomware is an approach where the attackers tend to decrypt the devices and deny the access of users from the services. A mail server is usually targeted by hackers to stop the internal and external communication of a business.
Threat to business from Ransomware
This type of attack might occur in a small business environment due to a lack of awareness of cybersecurity attacks. An email received to a small firm can take over the control of the company assets. The attackers, demands a huge amount of payment to give control back to the company.
Prevention
In order to prevent a ransomware attack, an approach of adding filters and scanning to the mail server is needed. The email that is inbound must be scanned to look for threats and must be denied if any suspicious attachment is found. In addition, a final approach to deny the ransomware attack is to deploy an updated anti-virus that adds an extra layer of protection to the assets of firms.
- Password attacks
It is a standard set that the people must change their passwords regularly and must not use predictable passwords. This technique is used in order to prevent password attacks that are caused by automatic systems to apply combinations of passwords to gain access.
Threat to business from weak Passwords
This type of attack might occur in a small business environment due to weak passwords. The weak passwords are set by users because they forget it usually. The administrator might take care of weak passwords, but the small firms do not have one. Weak passwords are hacked easily by hackers. The loss of credentials cost the company a huge amount as the privacy of data is violated.
Prevention
The best approach to deny these types of attacks is to use a password manager. The password manager is used to manage all the passwords and ensure security. In addition, the passwords of the user must change regularly to prevent these attacks.
Importance of regular cybersecurity assessment
The attacks that are usually used for small businesses create different problems. The problems due to lack of regular cybersecurity checks are losing access to the assets and losing credentials. The importance of regular cybersecurity assessment is that it provides protection against viruses, spyware. The data security is ensured that is the ultimate and most important asset of any business. A regular check and awareness of cybersecurity ensure the protection of the system from being hacked.
The most vulnerable asset in a small business
The most vulnerable asset in a small business is the email system that faces the most common issues:
- Malware
- Weak passwords
- Stolen devices
- Phishing
- Ransomware
The email server is a getaway for the attacker in order to enter into the physical and logical infrastructure of the company. These issues create a vast threat to the company in the shape of profitability and productivity. The breaches that are produced with these attacks can cost the companies in millions and also lost all the business.
Conclusion
Every small organization or any individual that has some type of connection with the internet must know that the system can be breached at any time. The cybersecurity assessment for small businesses must be deployed properly to ensure the security of their assets. The different attacks must be studied and the prevention techniques must be deployed inside their businesses. The cost of these attacks is much higher than the cost of loss that is created by these attacks.
Agasti cybersecurity experts can help with a complimentary assessment of your small business security posture.
