Fast Stats About Cybersecurity Every Small Business Owner Must Know

Even though cybersecurity is one of the most dooming threats for small businesses, it is also one threat that is most commonly misunderstood. A lot of small business owners assume cybersecurity is not such a big deal because they are not a large operation. Yet, every year, the number of attacks on small business owners continues to grow. Take a look at some statistics relative to cybersecurity small business owners need to hold as highly important.

Photo via Pixabay/Cristian Rodri

Small Businesses Are at Severe Risk of Cyber Attacks

A whopping 43 percent of cyber attackers go after small businesses, according to Small Biz Trends, and that percentage has been steadily on the rise for the last several years. Phishing attacks are a major threat to small businesses, and it is easy to see why that is the case. A lot of the smaller corporations simply do not invest the time or money into properly educating employees about phishing attacks and may not have the best safeguards in place either.

The Concern About Cybersecurity Is High But Actual Protective Measures Low

Small businesses know how much a cyber compromise can affect them. In fact, one of the top concerns for most of these operations is protecting sensitive customer data. Yet, too many small businesses fail to incorporate protective measures in spite of their concerns. A minuscule 14 percent of small businesses believe that their ability to actually mitigate a cyber risk or cyber vulnerability is highly effective.

Small Businesses Have a Hard Time Surviving Attacks

An article published by The Denver Post in 2016 stated that as much as 60 percent of smaller companies completely buckle within six months after they have experienced a cyber attack. To put that into perspective, if 10 small businesses all got attacked by the same threatening online entity, six of them would disappear pretty quickly because they wouldn’t have the funding to recuperate and move forward.

What to Reap from the Data on Cybersecurity & Small Businesses

Overall, looking at this data shows just how important cybersecurity really should be for small business owners. Even though large corporations may be more targeted, most of them have protective measures in place, such as employee cybersecurity training and IT cybersecurity experts on staff. Therefore, larger businesses tend to rebound much faster—sometimes without so much damage.

Author: Jacob Maslow