Cybersecurity update: Is your business at risk? You need protection before it’s too late.
Small to Medium Business Cyberattacks You Need Protection From Before It Is Too Late.
South Africa is being targeted by cybercriminals more and more. Our country's third-highest number of cybercrime victims globally costs R2.2 billion a year.
Cyber attacks on small to medium-sized businesses are becoming more frequent, targeted, and complex. According to Accenture’s Cost of Cybercrime Study, 43% of cyber attacks are aimed at small businesses. And phishing is the number one type of fraud globally.
Large organisations have whole departments dedicated to cyber security. Small to medium-sized businesses often react to cyberattacks once it's too late.
The impact of a cybersecurity attack can be devastating and last weeks or months from which you may never recover. Here are ways cybercrime can hurt your business.
Finances
The worst consequence of a cyberattack is the damage to your bottom line. Your regular business operations are compromised. Customers could switch to a competitor to protect themselves from cybercrime. You can also lose money to hackers who hold your information and business for ransom.
Productivity
A cyberattack can prevent your employees from accessing your system, disrupting productivity and profitability. Cybercriminals can use any number of ways to handcuff a company’s everyday activities, whether by infecting computer systems with malware that erases information or instals malicious code on a server.
Reputation
If your business falls victim to a cyberattack, it could tarnish your reputation. Customers and even suppliers may feel less secure giving their sensitive information to a company whose IT infrastructure was compromised.
Legal liability
If you’re a victim of an attack, you may have to pay even more for attorney fees and damages due to legal action against your company.
Sustainability
Cybercrime is costly and can damage your business’s relationship with your customers and suppliers. As cybercrime becomes more sophisticated, you must stay updated and protected to survive and prosper.
The First Line Of Defense Is Your People
Remote working has placed employees outside your business’s usual security infrastructure, leaving them and your business vulnerable to various cyberattacks.
We’ve already seen high-volume social media security breaches. Add this information to what employees share on social media and online. There is a scary amount of personal data and intelligence available. Cybercriminals will exploit this and create ever more convincing attacks.
Human error is behind around 95% of cybersecurity breaches. Your staff need to be well-informed and well equipped to protect themselves against cybercrime.
We believe in taking a proactive approach towards cybersecurity. Defending your organisation against cyberattacks requires continuous security education and awareness.
The Most Concerning Cybercrime On The Rise In 2022
57% of the most common attacks on small businesses are Phishing and Social Engineering.
Phishing is a type of social engineering. Cybercriminals use fake emails to trick employees into clicking links to malicious websites or open attachments containing malware to access your organisation’s systems or sensitive information. 96% of phishing attacks arrive via email.
We recommend a combined solution including Identity Threat Protection, anti-phishing heuristics protection, and user awareness training to identify and mitigate phishing attacks effectively. We encourage you to train your staff by staging random phishing simulations. Here, you can learn how to run your phishing test on our blog.
There are other cybersecurity threats predicted to increase in 2022.
Supply Chain Cyber-Attacks
Cybercriminals can take advantage of a lack of monitoring across your supply chain. They perform different types of cyber-attacks, from data breaches to malware infections that can even spread to your customers.
Mobile Malware Attacks
66.6% of the world population use a smartphone. More people have access to smarts phones than clean water. They use their mobile devices for personal and business communications and banking and shopping, to name a few. As mobile wallets and mobile
payment platform use become more and more widespread, cybercriminals will increasingly exploit the growing reliance on mobile devices.
Ransomware-as-a-Service
Ransomware-as-a-Service, or RaaS, is an already-developed ransomware tool available on subscription to criminals to use and execute ransomware attacks.
According to industry experts, South African victims of ransomware pay on average more than R3,2-million in ransom, and as few as a third of the victims get their data back after they pay. RaaS will continue to spread and evolve and affects organisations of every size and shape.
Get Protected, Stay Protected.
As experts in email security, SYNAQ is more than capable of helping mitigate some of these threats and more. If you’re concerned that you, your employees or your business are not adequately prepared and protected, get in touch.
