Being an owner of small business doesn’t mean that you should take the cyber-security lightly. Now, cyber-crimes are reported to be happened at several SMBs at the rate which may be bigger than those at large organizations. A recent survey conducted by CYREN in association with Oesterman Research reveals that more than half of the SMBs are facing IT security threats. Here are the key takeaways from survey which may make you think about your small business security.
- 71% have gone through malware-related security breach
- 43% have been the prey to the phishing attack
- 36% have been exposed to virus and worm infection
- 23% hit by ransomware
CYREN, a cloud based Internet security company, has teamed up with Oesterman Research, a market research firm, to conduct this survey officially known as 2016 Benchmarking Survey, erstwhile IT Security at SMBs: CYREN 2016 Benchmarking Survey.
The survey’s respondents belong majorly from IT companies followed by manufacturing, healthcare and financial services. Some of the major questions from the survey’s questionnaire are based on these points
- Rate of infection or security breach in past year and how they cost them.
- Cyber-security budgets at SMBs
- Security solutions and their vendors
- Protection policies for travelling employees
- Big threats and the ways to deal with them
According to the survey, over half respondents have started monitoring encrypted SSL traffic while other says they have opted for a cloud based SaaS Internet security services.
Michael Osterman, founder of Osterman Research, expressed concerned over the rising threats to small business infrastructures as he says, “These findings fully debunk the frequent misconception that ‘my organization is too small to attract cybercriminals. With 71% of IT managers at small and medium-sized businesses reporting recent data breaches and less than half of them expressing confidence in their ability to protect against advanced threats, it’s not surprising to see SMBs increased their IT security spending 23% over the last year.”
The survey’s surprising revelations about security threats are call to the SMBs to consider their IT security.