Every year, a number of major hacking attacks that are carried out against some of the biggest national chains in the U.S. grab headlines and briefly make everyone more aware of this risk. However, what many people don’t know is that hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country are impacted in similar ways on a much more miniscule scale. And unfortunately, the damage done is often costly and problematic for those independent firms.
There are many ways in which a cyber attack can hit a small business, and data shows that about 20 percent of all such companies nationwide are impacted every year, according to a report from the Scranton Times-Tribune. Some experts even suggest that as many as half of all online attacks are carried out against small businesses specifically, and it really shouldn’t come as a surprise as to why this is increasingly the case.
“Just because you’re a small business, doesn’t mean your information is any less valuable to hackers,” Fred Reck of Innotek Computer Consulting recently told attendees of a Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce seminar, according to the newspaper. “Small businesses have a lot of personal information of their clients, and they are not nearly as well protected as these large companies are. Small businesses are low-hanging fruit because they don’t believe they are a target, and therefore have very loose or no security systems and protocols in place.”
How can they be carried out?
Obviously major data breaches can be one of the biggest concerns in this regard, but that’s not the only way in which a company can be attacked, the report said. Others may simply have their email or Facebook accounts compromised, while some might find that local hackers are able to get onto not-secure-enough networks and gain access to critical files that way.
That, in turn, can not only put personal and company data at risk, but also financial information that could lead hackers to be able to withdraw money from company accounts, the report said. Often, by the time such an attack is noticed, those coffers can have been cleaned out with relative ease.
Owners who want to protect their companies from the financial implications of a hacking attack of this type may want to consider the benefits of adding a type of low-cost small business insurance policy known as tech insurance. This type of plan can potentially be used to save companies thousands of dollars or more.
