Hackers are targeting small and medium size businesses

Hackers are a constant. Exploits, security holes and attack vectors  are changing daily giving hackers greater opportunities to break in. Every small and medium size business should be executing network vulnerability scans regularly, in addition to fortifying their cyber security posture in general (e.g. Anti Virus, security education, applying manufacturer software updates/patches, etc).

Hackers are targeting small and medium size businesses. Small and medium size businesses sometimes feel that they aren’t likely to be a target due to their size and that hackers couldn’t possibly be interested in what they do – but in reality the exact opposite is true. Hackers prey on the knowledge that small businesses tend to have lower defenses than larger organizations, usually due to lack of financial and human resources. By their very nature, thriving small businesses are innovative and niche, which again is very attractive to the bad guys who may be interested in customer data and intellectual property and know exactly how to pick out the weak targets. Burying your head in the sand may save money in the short term, but the cost of hacking could range from minor inconvenience, reputation damage, loss of customer data, fines and ultimately company closure.

There are a few prevailing “false narratives” that many small and medium size businesses dangerously believe.

• Many  believe that because they hired a company to install a website, install a network, install computers, install software that this magically makes them secure forever ( or that a third party company is somehow responsible for on going security without a contract that says so).
• Their in house IT technicians are performing proactive security issue discovery. Many technicians are very good at what they do, but to assume they have time/skill to perform proactive security technology auditing can be a dangerous assumption.

InfoTech Innovators offers internal and external network vulnerability scanning services that inspect the potential points of exploit on a computers, servers, or network to identify security holes. A vulnerability scan detects and classifies system weaknesses in computers, networks and communications equipment and predicts the effectiveness of countermeasures. Armed with the vulnerability report our service produces, a small business can then take steps to fortify their network security technology posture.

As referenced in this article on Forbes.com “More than half (55 percent) of the nearly 600 small- and medium-sized businesses surveyed by the Ponemon Institute reported being hit by a cyber attack in the past year, and 50 percent said they experienced a data breach involving customer and employee information over the same time period. It cost these companies an average of $879,582 in damage to or theft of IT assets and an average of $955,429 due to the disruption of operations, according to Ponemon’s “State of Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Business,” which was released in June 2016.”

Contact InfoTech Innovators today and learn how we can help !