According to Symantec, the last 5 years have shown a steady increase in attacks targeting businesses with less than 250 employees. The US Cyber Security Alliance reports 60% of Small business that suffer an attack are unable to recover. Additionally, the Ponemon institute reports indicated the average cost for small business to recover and respond to a cyber attack is between $600,000 and $1,000,000. Being a small business is not guarantee that cyber criminals and hackers will pass you by. There are some things you can do and put in place to protect your business.
- Know your assets and your risk
Conduct an analysis of your assets, physical and digital, identify your critical systems and data, assess the threats and vulnerabilities and develop a plan to protect those assets.
- Utilize protection systems such as firewalls, anti-virus/anti-spyware and encryption.
Ensure you are using and properly maintaining your firewalls and anti-malware/spyware devices and systems and encrypt your data.
- Monitor your network and systems.
Have a system in place to detect anomalies, incidents and attacks. Also have and test notification systems. There are several options and companies that provide monitoring services. Virtual Security Operations Centers provide the small business with similar resources that larger companies have internally, and without the infrastructure cost.
- Have a cyber incident response plan
Develop and practice your plan to deal with disruptive cyber attacks.
- Back-up your data,
Have a back-up plan, and be sure to follow that plan.
Cyber Security is not an issue only for large companies, small business need to protect themselves. There are resources out there to help. Click here for more information or to schedule your free consultation.
