McAfee, a leader in online protection, announced findings from its Global Small Business Study which surveyed the owners and IT decision makers at small businesses across six countries to discover their thoughts and behavior around cybersecurity.
The study, conducted in collaboration with Dell Technologies, reveals cybersecurity is one of the greatest concerns of small businesses globally, with 73% of organisations saying it is one of their biggest risks or vulnerabilities.
The study reveals cybersecurity is one of the greatest concerns of small businesses globally, with 73% of organisations saying it is one of their biggest risks or vulnerabilities. And these fears are justified. The data shows that cyberattacks are on the rise, as 44% of small businesses have experienced a cyberattack, and 17% have experienced more than one. For 67% of the organisations that experienced a cyberattack, the incident occurred in the last two years, indicating that the threat of cybercrime has become more prevalent.
For a small business, even a single cyber incident can be devastating to the bottom line. For small business owners who experienced a cyberattack, 61% lost more than £10,000 dealing with the attack. In addition, more than half (60%) of the business owners and IT decision makers indicated that the cyberattack on their business took a physical or mental toll on them and/or their staff or colleagues. In 58% of the cases, the business lost more than a week of valuable time dealing with IT issues due to the attack.
These cyberattacks have a significant impact on the finances, customer trust, and operating efficiency of small companies, causing customer data (38%), passwords (34%) or other files (34%) to be lost. Many of these attacks (43%) were caused by someone mistakenly downloading malware by clicking on a phishing link and/or opening a malicious attachment.
Unfortunately, small business owners are at a significant disadvantage when faced with malicious messages that are increasingly realistic and frequent thanks to artificial intelligence (AI). AI is a scammer’s favorite tool, helping cybercriminals increase the scale, speed and sophistication of phishing and text message scams.
To help reduce AI-related concerns and anxieties about data security, small business owners need AI to beat AI. This cutting-edge technology can work in their favour to proactively protect them in real-time before they even know they have been targeted.
In an increasingly complex online world, the need for resources and products to help keep small business owners and their employees informed and protected online has never been greater.
“We understand the vulnerabilities and risks small business owners face, and we’re committed to providing them industry leading online protection solutions that let them do what they do best and let us do what we do best – protect you, your data, and your customers,” said Pedro Gutierrez, Senior Vice President of Sales for McAfee.
