What Threat is a Small Business Really Under?

Small businesses face a lot of risks, one obvious one being the threat of potential cybercrime and how its influence can impact their businesses. Let’s consider how these influences have taken shape, and the challenges that small and medium-sized businesses must now face as a result.

The Impact of Compliance Fatigue

Obviously, security is important nowadays, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. With the list of compliance requirements and regulations expanding ad infinitum (or seeming to, at the very least) it can be relatively easy for a business and the people operating it to succumb to complacency. It also doesn’t hurt that these requirements and regulations don’t always appear to be enforced.

Compliance standards are in place to help protect businesses and the customers who act as their patrons—but many may fear that, with so many regulations, some contradicting overlap is inevitable. While this is rare, it isn’t unheard of.

Regardless, these standards need to be upheld as a rule, as the expenses incurred keeping up with their requirements total to be less than the cost noncompliance would bring.

Cloud Environment Misconfiguration

With the expansion of cloud-based tools in recent years, the required workforce to maintain the platforms that support them has fallen short of matching this growth. Worse, many public cloud security failures (95 percent of them, according to Gartner) take place because of things that the customers have done as compared to the platform providers. Misconfigurations in a cloud solution or environment can easily lead to significant security challenges, impacting cost overruns and contributing to data breaches.

Increase in Mobile Malware

With more people than ever using mobile devices, hackers have shifted their focus accordingly to target mobile platforms. Increased FinTech has also contributed to a rise in malware attacks that go after banking applications.

As Usual, Phishing Attacks

Phishing remains one of the most pressing cybersecurity threats that businesses and private users alike need to deal with. The social engineering tactic enables cybercriminals to effectively fool your team members into handing over the metaphorical keys to the castle, making these team members the active security failure. The best way to prevent this from occurring is to train your team to be able to recognize these attempts and mitigate them appropriately.

There’s a lot more that we can offer to help you improve your business’ cybersecurity. Find out what your options are by calling (509) 534-1530 today.