As football season approaches and being an “Ohio Based Unified Service Provider,” this is as close to blasphemy as you can get! Quoting the legendary coach at the “School Up North” was a thorn in the side of every Ohio State Buckeye football fan for many years.
The correlation is that today’s SMBs are prime candidates for getting “run over” and becoming victims of cybersecurity threats compromising the foundation of their day-to-day operations. People no longer steal through the front door; they steal through your technology stack! Here are some quick stats to help you take notice if your defensive strategy is strong enough:
- Cyberattack volume: SMBs are the target of 43% of cyber-attacks annually, and the number of attacks increased by 150% between 2020 and 2022. In 2023, 41% of SMBs were victims of a cyberattack.
- Cyberattack costs: SMBs lose an average of $25,000 per cyber-attack, ranging in costs from $826 to $653,587 per incident.
- Cyberattack targets: SMBs with fewer than 1,000 employees are especially vulnerable, accounting for 46% of cyber-attacks. SMBs are often easy targets because they may lack the resources to protect themselves, such as cybersecurity tools and practices.
What’s In Your Playbook?
Read below for a few “scouting reports” of what can stop your opponent from both internal and external cybersecurity threats – that are putting your business at risk for an attack:
- Phishing and Social Engineering: Phishing is an attempt to gain sensitive information by posing as a customer, client, or vendor of your business through fax, email, or social engineering through a phone call with the intent of getting employees to reveal confidential information.
- Ransomware: Ransomware is a devastating form of malware that encrypts critical internal information, such as customer, employee, or vendor data, account credentials, or files, rendering them inaccessible until the company pays the ransom. The recovery process can be lengthy, taking up to 21 days or more, and is only possible if the business has been performing regular backups.
- Poor Patch Management: Poor patch management is the inability to keep software updated, leaving systems vulnerable to exploitation.
- Using Weak Passwords or Keeping Factory Set Passwords: This involves using simple, widely used, shared, or easily guessed passwords. Another password faux pas is forgetting to reset passwords when downloading new software. It’s the equivalent of using a paper lock on the door of your business.
- Insider Threats: Insider threats come from end users who accidentally or intentionally give access to cyber attackers to your network.
Click here to see how CTG was able to locate an opening in a client’s cyber defense strategy to help eliminate potential cyber risk openings and protect their network.
Corporate Technologies Group is here to help SMBs mitigate risks with our managed or co-managed IT Cyber Security Playbook. With our approach to “Cyber Best Practices,” you get a deeper insight into your software, endpoints, and network to provide support to your team!
If you would like more information, call 330-655-8144 to schedule an appointment or email info@ctgusa.net.