When you think about organizations that have experienced a data breach, what are the first ones that come to mind? If you’re like most people, chances are your answers were likely Target, Home Depot, The IRS, Anthem Blue Cross, or any of the other big-name breaches that have occurred in the last few years.
While these are the breaches that make headlines and stick out in our minds, they are far from the only companies that are being targeted by hackers. A staggering 50% of small business have experienced a data breach today as they struggle to find the right resources to secure their networks.
Why Your Business is a Target for Data Breaches
Small and Medium-sized business owners and executives say, "I don't have anything hackers want." Studies show that over half of small businesses don't allocate budget for risk mitigation because they "don't store any valuable data."
But almost every organization does! It's obvious for banks, credit unions, and healthcare facilities, but other businesses have data too.
- Email addresses
- Phone numbers
- Billing addresses
- Bank accounts
- Employee records
- Customer data
- Proprietary data
Over 5.5 million data records are stolen every single day, but cyberattacks like Ransomware don't have to steal your data to impact your business. Compromised machines can become parts of botnets for larger attacks across the internet.
The aftermath of cyberattacks is staggering. On average, a small business spends $879,582 in a cyber breach, while they lose almost a million dollars in productivity due to that breach.
Where are all these attacks coming from? The majority of the time, attacks can be traced to an internal employee unknowingly causing the attack — we often refer to this as "human error."
So what should you do? At Ascend Technologies, we apply a "Defense in Depth" approach, which involves layering security services together to improve the security posture of organizations like yours. For our updated lineup of services, check out Managed Security Services for more information.
