Early this year, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) claimed that small firms are unfairly carrying the cost of cybercrime in an increasingly penetrable digital economy.
The report, ‘Cyber Resilience: How to protect small firms in the digital economy,’ states that small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) are collectively attacked seven million times per year, costing the UK economy an estimated £5.26 billion. The call to action? Bigger organisations need to support the smaller companies to protect against these attacks.
When trying to protect themselves against malicious attacks on their networks, small businesses will find themselves in a David versus Goliath situation. There is an industry call for more support from larger organisations to help smaller businesses put more robust security measures and strategies in place. However, no business should rely on the actions of others. It’s too easy to let others fight the fight without getting your hands dirty, and in the world of business, this approach is ineffective. No matter their size, small businesses need to take proactive steps to protect their assets from cyber-criminals.
Take matters into your own hands
Yes, a collaborative front against cybercrime puts all businesses in good stead for protecting themselves from security breaches, however it means each and every organisation needs to play its part.
Take the famous 2013 Target data breach in the United States for example. This occurred because a subsidiary organisation – three times removed in the supply chain to Target – was in fact breached. It could be as simple as not updating operating systems. You’d be surprised at how many small businesses are still running old operating systems, such as Windows 2003, on their IT networks. Any servers still running this programme cannot host new antivirus software and remain unpatched, so are vulnerable to attacks.
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