According to the forecast, cybercrime is projected to cost the U.S. over $639 billion in 2025. Network intrusion, ransomware attacks, and phishing stand high on the list of the most common cyber attacks implemented against businesses in America.
Financial losses are not the only consequences of a cyber attack. Reputational damage is also at stake. Your customers will have a hard time trusting you again if you don’t manage to protect their data from third parties, let alone those with malicious intentions.
Protection must be a top priority. James Scott, a Senior Fellow and co-founder of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology, states, “There’s no silver bullet in cybersecurity; only layered defense works.”
But how can you, as a business owner, understand that your company is at risk? Below are the common signs indicating that your enterprise, whether it’s huge, mid-sized, or small, is in need of implementing strong cybersecurity measures.
Signs That Your Business Might Be Exposed to Cyber Attacks
1. You Don’t Have a Cybersecurity Plan in Place
A formal cybersecurity plan is a must for every company that is worried about its safety and the safety of its customers. Many companies, particularly small enterprises, overlook the need for a strong cybersecurity plan until it is too late. This plan, however, outlines the necessary steps to protect your systems, how to respond in case of an attack, and what steps are needed to recover in case the attack has taken place.
Certain signs, such as no designated IT security personnel, no employee training on cybersecurity protocol, and no incident response strategy, mean that your business is at a high risk of losing everything in case it is exposed to a cyber attack.
A whopping 85% of companies, as stated by the internet security firm Symantec, don’t have a cybersecurity plan that would prevent the undesired consequences of a cyber attack if it happened.
You Rely on Outdated Software and Systems
Outdated software and systems are those that are no longer maintained by their developers, meaning that they don’t receive critical updates. This, in turn, exposes people and businesses that use them to dangers that could have been avoided had these tools been updated.
Among the consequences of the outdated software are business and functional disruption, third-party breaches, and ransomware risk, all of which can severely impact operations and lead to significant financial losses.
That is why updating all software, including firewalls, plugins, and operating systems, should be a routine task for the company’s IT team.
3. You Don’t Regularly Back Up Your Data
One of the most common mistakes companies, especially small enterprises, make is avoiding data backups. They are, however, critical in case the original data is lost, damaged, stolen, or corrupted.
Common ways to back up data include external hard drives or USBs, cloud storage services (e.g., Google Drive, Dropbox, or business-level solutions like AWS or Azure), and network-attached storage (NAS) or on-premises servers.
Back up critical data regularly, ideally daily, to protect it from cybercriminals.servers.
4. You Lack Email Security Measures
Email is the most popular form of communication for businesses, but not all of them know that if an email system doesn’t have robust security settings, then phishing, spoofing, and malware are not uncommon to face.
Phishing, for example, is the practice of sending emails on behalf of organizations or trusted individuals, and it involves dangerous links that could steal a person’s or business’s money or personal data. According to a 2023 study, 10.4% of employees all over the world clicked on malicious links, and more than 60% of them entered their login credentials on harmful sites. In fact, employees of smaller enterprises showed a higher tendency to click on such links.
So, if you want to avoid email-related dangers that could jeopardize your organization’s reputation, make sure to use secure email gateways and configure DMARC, SPF, and DKIM to authenticate emails.
5. You Store Sensitive Data Without Proper Protection
If your business stores personally identifiable information, payment card data, or other sensitive information, it should be stored properly. When a business stores this kind of data without encryption, doesn’t comply with GDPR or HIPAA regulations, or shares this data through unsecured platforms, it risks exposing this information to third-party sources sooner or later.
The best solution is to encrypt the data and make it accessible to only those employees who directly work with it.
6. Your Employees Aren’t Trained in Cybersecurity Awareness
Interface highlights an alarming statistic: more than 7 in 10 European companies don’t offer cybersecurity education to their staff. 68% of these companies, as stated in the report, said that no training was needed, 16% were not aware of any, and 8% considered such measures to be too expensive. Other organizations expressed their concerns about finding qualified candidates for cybersecurity positions.
But it is common knowledge that cybersecurity training for employees is prevalent to protect an organization from cyberattacks. When a company worker clicks on suspicious links without verifying them, doesn’t know who to turn to to report suspicious activity, and is not trained in general, they risk exposing the company data.
If you still doubt whether it is time to teach your employees about cybersecurity practices, it is your sign to implement them as soon as possible.
7. You Don’t Monitor Your Partners and Vendors
Even if your internal system is secure, a data breach at a service provider can still put your business at serious risk. Cybercriminals often use third-party sources as an entry point to larger organizations whose systems are harder to crack. This supply chain attack allows hackers to infiltrate your system through others, particularly those you work with, as they store your data.
To protect yourself from this, conduct vendor risk assessments, continuously monitor third-party activities, and create an incident response plan.
FAQs
What does my company stand to lose if it gets exposed to a cyber attack?
If your organization ever falls victim to a cyber attack, the consequences can be damaging for the organization itself and its employees and customers. Data theft, operational downtime, reputational damage, and loss of competitive advantage are just some of the troubles the company risks facing.
As a business owner, you and your employees will most likely face emotional damage, as the time and resources spent to recover the lost data and money will be detrimental. The stress of navigating a security breach and watching the reputation of your organization take a hit is overwhelming for everyone involved in the whole process.
How can I tell if my business is already under attack?
The telltale signs of a potential attack include unexpected logins outside your company’s system, unusual network activity, sudden system crashes, and suspicious emails, among other things. The second you spot at least one of these, it is important to immediately implement security measures. For this, you should already have a cybersecurity plan in place that addresses such situations. Hiring cybersecurity specialists trained in recognizing and addressing cyber attacks is the most effective solution, especially if your organization has much to lose.
What is the most common cyberattack on small businesses?
Malware (18%) is said to be the most common type of cyberattack aimed at small enterprises. Phishing emails, data breaches, and ransomware are other dangers they face. In fact, smaller organizations have a higher chance of getting hit by a cyberattack, with 700,000 attacks, for example, taking place against them in 2020, resulting in $2.8 billion in losses. It’s not because they have more to offer; in reality, small businesses are less prepared for such an attack.
Why is employee training important in cybersecurity?
Every company that wants to minimize its risks of cyberattacks must understand that it is impossible to do it without employee training. When company staff are trained to recognize malicious links and attachments or any other suspicious activity that might jeopardize an organization, the organization is less likely to lose its money and reputation.
When employees understand what role they play in protecting company data, they become more aware and responsible. Although some companies find training to be costly and time-consuming, it later pays off as a result.
