Running a small business isn’t easy and for the last 5 years my team and I have worked tirelessly to put our business in a place which is profitable. There are many things which you can pay for when it comes to running your own business and they must all be weighed up before parting with any cash. Something which I was recommended to do from early on was to invest in high level cyber security for our systems, and I must confess that for the first 2 years the thought didn’t even cross my mind. At the beginning of the third year I spoke with an old friend of mine Bharat Bhise HNA. Bharat has worked in computers and in particular in cyber security for many years, and he had some home truths to tell me about cyber crime.
Bharat spoke to me at length about the dangers of not having cyber security in place and it certainly worked. I invested in tightening up the security of my small business and here is why small business are so at risks from these attacks.
Easy To Do
Hackers and cyber criminals know that small businesses don’t have big bucks to throw at cyber security which is why we are generally much easier to attack. It isn’t just the probability of achieving the attack which excites criminals, but also the fact that they are going to be highly likely to get away with it. When a cyber criminal tries to take on a big fish, they are met with all manners of firewalls and security blocks which make the hack either very difficult or one which is going to land them in trouble.
Unnoticeable
When a cyber criminal wants to hack into the FBI or NASA database they are of course not only going to be met with tough security measures, they will also be found out pretty quickly after the attack, such is the sensitivity of these systems. When it comes to a small business however this is not the case and on most occasions they can enter the system, take what they want, and then get out without leaving as much as footprint. Actually footprints are left, they are just never spotted.
Easy Sales
One of the most common reasons why these attacks happen is to steal information which can then be sold on. Now if you hack Visa and steal information it is going to be tough to sell on, given the magnitude of the hack. When you are stealing a couple of thousand customer’s personal information and trying to sell it on, it is easier to do and far less noticeable.
Whilst a small business doesn’t offer much plunder for a hacker, the ease and likelihood of getting away with it are strong enough forces to make small businesses the ripe kind of business to attack, which is exactly why more business should be investing money in ensuring that this doesn’t happen.
