14 DAY TRIAL // Around 53% of all SMBs, small companies with up to 250 employees and medium-sized ones with up to 499, have been affected by a security breach during the last year according to Cisco's 2018 Annual Cybersecurity Report.
Moreover, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) found out during a study that small/midmarket businesses will go through a period of financial struggles after a severe cyber attack, with more than half of all SMB owners that took part in the study saying that they would go under in less than a month if essential data would be lost.
"29% of midmarket companies say breaches cost them less than $100K. 20% say it costs $1,000,000-$2,499,999," says Cisco's 2018 Annual Cybersecurity Report.
When it comes to the security issues they could face, SMBs are mostly concerned targeted phishing attacks, advanced malware that anti-malware solutions cannot detect and fend off (advanced persistent threats), and, on the last place, ransomware.
As explained by Cisco's researchers, SMBs aren't as concerned about ransomware attacks as large enterprises seeing that they are a lot more prone to paying the ransom and go on with their business as soon as possible, avoiding system downtime and overall severe business disruption.
Out of all affected SMBs in security attacks, about 20% face very costly breaches, between $1,000,000 and $2,499,999
DDoS attacks, compromised BYOD and smart devices, insider data exfiltration, critical business processes, regulatory compliance constraints, and cloud computing are other concerns SMBs have listed in their top 10.
Even though not listed as one of the top 10 security concerns by any of the SMBs that took part in the study, illegal cryptocurrency mining (crypto mining) is a continuously increasing threat.
According to a McAfee Global Threat Intelligence report, coin mining focused malware has seen a massive boost in activity in the second quarter of 2018, with the total number of samples detected having grown by 86%.
Cisco's report still has some good news regarding the SMB security market, given that 92% of "midmarket businesses have an executive responsible and accountable for security."
Among other trends observed by Cisco during their research, "53% of defenders manage more than half their infrastructure in the cloud" and "34% of security professionals completely rely on machine learning."
As for recommendations for improving cybersecurity, SMBs should have a cyber-risk strategy in place to make sure that they are ready to counteract any possible security attack they might face in the future.
