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In this News Insight from CSO Magazine, ESG’s Jon Oltsik talks about the unique cybersecurity risks facing SMBs. For more insights on developing an effective security plan, download our in-depth guide.
ESG recently completed a research survey of 400 cybersecurity and IT professionals working at small organizations (i.e. 50 to 499 employees) in North America. As you can imagine, these firms tend to have a small staff responsible for cybersecurity and IT, reporting to business management rather than CIOs or CISOs. (Note: I am an employee of ESG.)
How are these firms doing with cybersecurity? Not so good.
Two-thirds of the organizations surveyed experienced at least one cybersecurity incident (i.e. system compromise, malware incident, DDoS, targeted phishing attack, data breach, etc.) over the past two years.
Nearly half (46%) of survey respondents said security incidents resulted in lost productivity, 37% said disruption of business applications or IT system availability, and 37% said disruption of a business process or processes (note: multiple responses were accepted).
So, small organizations are being targeted and compromised, and security incidents tend to result in a measurable financial impact.
The biggest contributors to cybersecurity incidents at SMBs
ESG also asked survey respondents to identify the issues that represented the biggest contributors to these security incidents. The data reveals that:
In my humble opinion, it’s time SMB executives realize that small businesses represent an easy mark for cyber adversaries. Criminals target SMBs to extort money or steal valuable data, while nation states use small businesses as a beachhead for attacking connected partners. Hopefully, this ESG research will help small businesses wake up to the dangers they face every second of every day.
This article was written by Jon Oltsik from CSO Magazine and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@newscred.com.
Putting in place an effective mobile security plan is key for businesses big and small. Download our guide to reassessing mobile security.