In the “old days” (meaning just a few years ago), small businesses could mostly fly under the radar where cyberattacks were concerned. Hackers mostly targeted large businesses, because they were more interested in accessing vast financial records and resources.
But nowadays, those large businesses have caught on to cyber criminals, and they tend to protect themselves with IT departments and sophisticated security measures. Hackers have switched their focus to small businesses. In fact, cyberattacks on small businesses rose 300 percent in 2012, and it appears that trend has continued ever since.
You don’t have an entire IT department. Cyber criminals measure their time spent against the possible reward, just as regular working people do. And while hacking a smaller business might not pack the payoff of a larger company, it’s also a lot easier. This is mostly due to the fact that you don’t have an entire in-house IT department to oversee your online security.
You might serve larger companies. If you have any larger companies as clients, hacking you is basically a back way into more lucrative data. Perhaps the hacker can’t get into a larger company’s database, but they can still access important information through a small business who partners with them.
Your bank account is a ripe target. Laws that safeguard commercial bank accounts aren’t as strong as those governing personal accounts. That’s because individuals aren’t expected to have serious security measures in place, but businesses are. Therefore, the bank passes that responsibility on to you, and if your account is hacked, they often won’t reimburse you for your loss! A larger business usually develops more stringent security measures, but hackers know that you might not have taken that step yet.
Considering how easy it is for hackers to target smaller businesses, it’s easy to see why many of them have given up on larger “jobs”.
You probably can’t implement an entire IT department tomorrow, but you can access the expertise of an IT department to secure your networks. Give us a call at 888-RING-MY-TECH, and we can put our knowledge to work for you. It’s like having your own IT team, without the overhead cost.
