Important Data Security Threats Every Small Business Should Know About

Companies, regardless of size, rely on critical business data in order to succeed and flourish. What would happen to their business if they lost sensitive information?Organizations may face insurmountable financial liabilities if they lose sensitive data. Data breaches can result in direct costs such as reimbursement to customers and data recovery costs. Companies may, for instance, face the inevitable task of recreating lost data from scratch after a breach occurs. Even worse is the damage to one’s reputation, especially since most consumers—their customers—said they would entirely stop dealing with an organization in the event of a security breach.

Reason 1# Employee negligence puts an organization at risk

A company’s greatest asset, its employees— can also be its weakest link, especially in an era wherein mobility and accessibility play a huge role in enhancing productivity.

The top reasons cited for data loss were SMB employees’ tendency to open attachments to or click links
embedded in spam, to leave their systems unattended, to not frequently change their passwords, and to visit
restricted sites. This negligence puts critical business data at risk from data-stealing cyber criminals and malicious insiders. Especially since 3.5 new threats are created every second, the number of court cases where SMBs have had six-figure amounts stolen by cybercriminals from their bank accounts has risen. Based on estimates, cybercriminals steal as much as US$1 billion a year from SMBs in the United States and Europe alone.

Reason 2# SMBs aren’t protected enough

 SMBs aren’t protected enough. The majority of SMBs said that, in general, they can’t do enough to protect their data using the measures and technologies they currently implement. Most SMBs also doubt their organizations’ capability to thwart advanced persistent threats (APTs). or hack attacks, especially since detection or discovery of data breaches among SMBs mostly occurs accidentally.

 Companies are no longer just at risk of losing data due to external threats such as hacking and compromises. They are, in fact, in even graver danger due to employee negligence or maliciousness. Even worse, 64% agree that their organizations need to re architect their security infrastructure against hackers or malicious insiders attempting to steal data. This effort may require focusing on data-centric security for confidential information, which entails relying on not only traditional outside-in protection but also on protection from the inside-out.

REASON 3# Employee mobility may prove disastrous.

Mobile devices enable the workforce to access data from virtually anywhere at any time, allowing greater flexibility and productivity. Freedom, however, may come at a price. Research shows that 56% of employees very frequently or frequently stored sensitive data on their laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. This means there is more than a 50% chance that confidential information can land in the
wrong hands should they lose these devices.

The Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) Era is here to stay. As more and more business data is stored in or accessed by devices that are not fully controlled by IT administrators, the likelihood of data loss incidents
caused by improperly secured personal devices will continue to rise.

REASON 4# SMBs fail to routinely back up data.

Less than 50% of SMBs routinely back up data. This, along with risky employee behaviors, the BYOD trend, lack of adequate security protection, and various other threats to data, is putting them at great risk.
Without an automated backup and recovery strategy in place, SMBs have very little ammunition should a
disaster strike. In fact, according to another Ponemon Institute study, 62% of SMBs were not confident of avoiding substantial downtime in the event of a serious incident.

About a third of U.S. companies also had no backup and disaster recovery strategies in place, citing lack of budget and resources as primary reasons.

REASON 5# SMBs do not enforce data security policies.

SMBs run the risk of losing data, employee productivity, revenue, and their reputation with the exponentially increasing number of data breaches. While technologies are important in data protection, properly managing the “human factor” will also help prevent your organization from becoming a data breach victim. SMBs should ensure data protection policies are put in place, communicated to employees, insiders and customers, and strictly implemented. In fact, 80% of organizations, regardless of size, believe managing and monitoring end-user privileges and entitlements is the most important security measure against data breaches.