Recent research conducted by Kaspersky has confirmed that Small and Medium Scale businesses are becoming Sureshot targets for cybercriminals, than larger enterprises.
In a study conducted between January 2021 to April 2022, researchers have identified that small-scale businesses were three times more likely to be hit by a cyber attack than large business counterparts.
What’s concerning about the research is the finding that the average loss incurred by SMBs when targeted by cyber-attacks has increased from $34,000 to $200,000. Besides this incurred loss, these small-scale businesses need to also incur legal fees, compliance penalties, reputation damage to their business, and customer loss.
In the past few years, attacks on small and medium scale businesses have also increased on a significant note. Password stealing, data-stealing regarding corporate accounts, and fraudulent access to corporate networks have been observed to have increased since 2021.
WFH culture is also bringing a lot of risks to SMB networks as employees are showing a blind eye to following basic cybersecurity hygiene.
So, Kaspersky is advising IT specialists working in such companies to avoid such cyber threats by proactively taking appropriate cybersecurity measures. It helps avoid burdensome costs that are incurred when an incident takes place.
“For companies operating in the small scale sector, there is a 90% probability of being attacked by a cyber incident in the next few months. The only thing they cannot predict about the incident is when it will occur. So, training staff accordingly and keeping a business continuity plan in place makes complete sense”, says Denis Parinov, a security researcher at Kaspersky.
