Cybersecurity might not be at the top of most of our minds this year, but cyberattacks against businesses have been a constant in 2021. According to Center for Strategic & International Studies, more than ten major cyberattacks have occurred in April alone. While most of these documented attacks were against large institutions and government agencies, it is an indication of a larger problem. Cyberattacks are on the rise. Mimecast reports that over 60% of businesses experienced a ransomware attack last year, and that these businesses experienced a significant amount of downtime as a result.
With many small businesses switching to remote work, the threat of cyberattacks and the need for a robust cybersecurity plan continues to increase. These cyberattacks against small business come in many different forms, including ransomware, malvertising, and social engineering. Social engineering is one of the most pertinent threats to your small business, and one of the subsets of social engineering attacks falls under a category you have probably heard of: phishing. Phishing attacks largely come in the form of emails or text messages that claim to be from a reliable source such as a bank or telecommunications company. These messages will likely ask the recipient to urgently take action and click a link contained in the message. This is all a hacker needs to breach your company’s data. Not only will the hackers now have access to the single victim’s data, but they will also have access to the victim’s contact list, which means that phishing emails and text messages can be sent to every employee in your company.
So what can you do to mitigate the risk of a cyberattack on your small business?
One of the best ways is to hire outside help. You should not have to lay awake at night worrying that if a single employee clicks a link in a sketchy email, hackers can breach all your company’s data. With a technology partner, you can rest easy knowing someone is constantly watching your data for signs of a breach. Your technology partner can also be responsible for providing training to your employees on how to avoid such attacks and help them all get set up with a secure virtual private network (VPN) so that remote work can be done safely and securely.
