Small Businesses Struggle With Cyber Security

Cyber thieves have become much wiser, more motivated and well-financed, which means keeping your business safe from them is becoming increasingly difficult.

Majority of large companies and corporations have smartened up to this threat, but with limited resources, time and money, it is much harder to keep these threats at bay for small companies.

Of course, there are still some large companies like eBay and Sony that get targeted, and when they do it makes the headlines, but it is definitely the smaller clients that get hit harder.

IT Support Bristol company, Netitude, say that there was a 91% increase in targeted attacks in 2013. This number is likely to have risen too. The amount of mobile users experiencing cybercrime is on the rise too, which is a worry for the public and businesses alike.

The BBC reported that becoming a victim of a hack or a breach could cost smaller businesses between £65,000 and £115,000 which can really hit a business out of the park. In fact, some companies can be targeted around six times a year too, so the overall cost could be a damn site higher too.

During the same report, they said that SMEs spend about £10,000 a year on IT security if they have 100 staff members or more, with companies with less than 20 staff members, spending about £200 – quite a jump.

IT security is important for business, of any size, so it is important to be aware of the risks. The basics are massively important as give you a great start. The basics includes the following:

• Anti-virus software
• Firewalls
• Spam filters on email gateways
• Keep devices up-to-date

By simply paying a bit of attention to these, the risk of your business is greatly reduced, which could end up saving the company thousands of pounds. Using these bits of software is simple to do too, which means any business can use them effectively. Software like this will need to be assured that it is working efficiently, that is why using container software in combination can help with fixing any issues that may arise. You can learn here about this to see how this will be beneficial to your business and how it functions.

The stress of a cybercrime or hack is a big burden to many small businesses looking to grow, so the time is takes to update your software and install anti-viruses is well worth it.