Small Businesses Are At Risk From Ransomware Attacks

Damon Garn, reporting in TechTarget, writes that small businesses are at risk for ransomware attacks, and mitigation and recovery planning are crucial to preventing them from being wiped out when it happens.

The typical small business has fewer than 500 employees, which increases its susceptibility to ransomware attacks. Tech experts and security personnel are specialized and costly, so small businesses often lack access to the necessary resources and expertise to prevent ransomware attacks.

Another reason they are vulnerable is that many don’t believe they are targets. They wonder if their organization is valuable enough to be targeted by cybercriminals. Wrong. Over 10 percent of small and medium-sized businesses suffered ransomware attacks in 2023.

The most common attack vectors are email phishing attacks, downloadable social media content, exploitation of operating system weaknesses, and infected websites and devices.

In order to address their vulnerabilities, small businesses should inventory the company’s technology resources and ready themselves to mitigate ransomware threats on a small budget. Training, technology, and planning are essential.

• Look for local security professionals who might train your employees to identify email phishing and scams on-site. It doesn’t take a security professional to stress the importance of good passwords or train employees to download files on business computers.
• Use multi-factor identification in every aspect of the business possible. IT should proactively patch operating systems and applications and maintain an automated backup plan for all critical data. These plans should be tested periodically to ensure that critical data is recoverable.
• Consider not allowing employees to use personal devices for business or to access business resources.