Many business owners are asking the question “Why does my Business Need Cybersecurity?”

Reliable cybersecurity is vital for preventing harmful cyberattacks. However, many small and medium-sized companies make the assumption that cybersecurity is only essential for large scale businesses. Small businesses vastly increase their risk of financial loss from cybercrime due to inadequate cybersecurity safeguards. This includes both those brought on by a tarnished brand, or from possible legal actions. The latter is especially concerning in the event of data breaches, which can be fatal for any enterprise.

As cybercriminals develop better strategies for ambushing their targets, the sophistication of attacks continues to increase. The FBI’s Internet Crime Report for 2021 shows total losses from cybercrime as $6.9 billion, an increase of 64% in compared to the $4.2 billion reported in 2020. In the past, threats like Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, ransomware, and phishing schemes weren’t a problem for small businesses. However, small enterprises worldwide are recently becoming more and more vulnerable to cyberattacks. Despite this, though, small businesses can be confident that they’re doing everything possible to secure themselves by putting best practices and the appropriate tools in place.

For hackers, small businesses are more efficient targets. The potential payment on a ransom is much higher from a billion-dollar company than from a typical small business. However, it is also considerably easier to target a handful of small businesses than a single “big” company.

Companies worth billions have far more resources than much smaller businesses to fend off hacking efforts. They have access to teams of skilled individuals whose sole responsibility is maintaining the security and functionality of their company’s technology. Plainly stated, committed IT specialists are sometimes viewed more as a luxury by smaller businesses than as a requirement. Frequently, a tech-savvy person who serves in multiple departments, such as administration or sales and marketing, fills these responsibilities.

Because of the financial constraints, smaller businesses cannot afford to invest as much in security as their counterparts with billion-dollar budgets. Most small businesses use a knowledgeable employee part-time, while others use simple anti-malware software, and some hire outside support. Having any measures in place is preferable to doing nothing.

Human mistake is the root cause of over 90% of breaches. This implies that small businesses need procedures to train staff to ensure best practices are implemented and methods to identify common phishing techniques. Businesses without the need or resources for an internal team should consider outsourcing to a third-party. A third-party team can also be used to lighten the load on a small internal IT department so they may concentrate on other activities. Always remember risk reduction and mitigation is better (and cheaper) than recovery and damage control.