Thanks to TEHTRIS for this article.
As an owner of a small or medium-sized business (SMB), you are unfortunately a prime target for cyberattacks and face a significant risk of being compromised. Recent studies highlight the growing cybersecurity challenges for SMBs, with one estimating that 44% of cyberattacks specifically target them (1).
Despite these alarming statistics, many SMBs underestimate or even ignore the cyber risks they face. This misconception, coupled with often limited cybersecurity resources, leaves them vulnerable to a wide range of threats.
While large corporations dominate headlines when they fall victim to cyberattacks, SMBs face unique and potentially more devastating consequences. Unlike larger organizations, SMBs often struggle to recover from an attack, making it critical to raise awareness about their cybersecurity challenges.
In this article, we’ll explore the most common types of attacks SMBs encounter. By understanding these threats, you can take proactive steps to better protect your business.
The following attacks are the most commonly used to target SMBs, according to our research. These are considered big threats in the cybersecurity space, no matter the size of the company, but are easier to use against SMBs due to their limited cybersecurity resources and knowledge.
The biggest threats for your SMB are phishing attacks. False e-mails or SMS are sent to employees from senders pretending to be someone in your company, partners or an important institution. Through phishing attacks, cyberthreats actors will try to get sensitive information and data about your business.
You have probably already dealt with phishing attempts. On average, a company spends 27.5 minutes to deal with one phishing e-mail, costing $31.32 per e-mail to the company (2).
Close second are ransomware. They are malicious software designed to extort money from your SMB. It can reach your IT infrastructure through a lot of different ways: phishing attempts, malicious websites or ads, infected downloaded software… Once it is downloaded, the process is the following: you will be locked out of your computers or won’t have access to some files, for example. To get the accesses back, threat actors will ask you to pay a ransom.
They are a lot of infamous examples of SMBs having to close following a ransomware attack. Even a medium-sized business of 300 people went out of business, a few months after a ransomware attack, unable to get back on its feet (3).
Malware are the most commonly known cyber risks. They include viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, adware. While we detailed ransomware in a separate section, as they are one of the biggest threats for SMBs, malware in general are a huge threat for your business.
Depending on the type of the malware, they can compromise the security of your IT systems and disrupt operations, for example.
The goal of Distributed Denial of Service attacks (DDoS attacks) is to put a targeted website, server, or network out of operation. In the case of a DDoS attack, a multitude of compromised systems simultaneously attack a chosen target. Due to the high number of requests, these attacks are particularly effective, causing the target to function abnormally, either by become extremely slow or, in the worst cases, entirely collapsing.
DDoS attack can be especially damaging and expensive for SMBs. A recent study showed that one DDoS attack costs, on average, $120,000 for a SMB (4).
A bot is a compromised device or system, remotely controlled by an attacker. When several computer systems are infected, they form a botnet. Laptops or classical computers, and any device with internet or connected to a compromised network can be part of a botnet.
The goal here is to use the compromised devices to carry out malicious activities such as DDoS attacks, sending spam e-mails, spreading malware…
Cyberattacks are, of course, the biggest risk for your SMB. But the reality is that these attacks are facilitated through the choice of your cybersecurity strategy and its daily management.
Unmanaged vulnerabilities are any security weaknesses that arise from improperly managed cybersecurity tools and neglected protection measures. This includes any lack of updates in systems or software, outdated software, improper configurations of cybersecurity tools, and unpatched vulnerabilities.
Unmanaged vulnerabilities usually happen because of limited resources or a lack of cybersecurity staff and are an easy way for threat actors to gain access to SMBs.
A common, and important vulnerability, are weak passwords. The need for a complex password to protect your IT infrastructure is well-known by the public, yet this remains a significant weakness in cybersecurity, especially if an IT-team doesn’t supervise the cybersecurity strategy of an organization.
A weak password is a simple vulnerability for cyber threat actors to exploit.
Insider threats are considered to be one of the biggest risks for your SMB, on par with threats like phishing attacks or ransomware. Current or former employees, third-party actors such as business partners or contractors: anyone who has access to sensitive data of your company can take it in order to misuse it.
SMBs are particularly susceptible to this type of threat. They tend to use traditional cybersecurity tools that often fail to analyze human behavior.
Human errors occur, and are, unfortunately, a major weakness to the cybersecurity of organizations. While mistakes can, of course, happen to anybody, the current trend for cyber threat actors is to create situations that will lead to mistakes made by employees.
This is called social engineering, and the most common examples are the phishing attacks previously covered in this article.
Smartphones, and other mobile devices, are usually the forgotten part of organizations’ cybersecurity strategies. And this isn’t only the case for SMBs. Unprotected mobile devices create an easy access to a company and its infrastructure.
They store a considerable amount of data about the company and are frequently used in public places with unsecured Wi-Fi. The protection of mobile devices can lead to a big competitive advantage for companies.
(1) https://www.stelliant.com/actualites/besse-stelliant-etude-cyber/
(4) https://www.techinsurance.com/resources/ddos-small-business-costs
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