Over the past year or two, a number of high-profile hacking attacks carried out on major companies across the country have grabbed headlines and made consumers and competitors alike start to fret about the potential danger these posed to their accounts. However, these kinds of occurrences happen every single day to many small businesses, just on a much smaller scale.
While attacks that affect hundreds of thousands of people or more and cost millions upon millions of dollars to major, brand-name businesses are certainly worthy of attention, nearly half of all small businesses nationwide have been hit with similar attacks, according to a report from the Associated Press. And while they don’t cost millions to the companies that suffer them, the damage is significant enough for many small businesses – on average, it’s in the high four-digit range – that such companies would notice the pain.
Why is this an issue?
Small business owners might realize that they’re vulnerable to various kinds of hacking attacks, but not think that it would be an issue for their companies in particular, simply because they’re too small to even be noticed, the report said. However, that’s not often the correct line of thinking, because their size is precisely what criminals often look for when trying to find their next target.
Small companies mean small budgets, and while they might spend months cracking the advanced security of a major retailer – to potentially steal millions or more – it would likely take them far less time to do the same for an independent business, the report said. That is to say, the reward might only be in the thousands, but if it can be done quickly, they might be able to rip off more companies in a short period of time and make a sizable haul nonetheless.
“[Small business owners] don’t know what they don’t know,” Jeff Foresman, a consultant with Rook Security, an Indianapolis-based computer security company, told the news agency. “They don’t understand the sophistication of these attacks.”
For these reasons, it might be wise for owners to take the time to invest in the kind of small business insurance coverage that can help insulate them from these issues. This kind of tech insurance may be able to save them thousands of dollars or more if they are hit by an attack.
