The growing number of incidents of data breach has made cybersecurity critical for enterprises. Such incidents can be catastrophic for companies and they may even never be able to recover from them. However, this is not just a risk for high-profile businesses. If you think that you can sideline this concern just because you run a small business, you are absolutely mistaken. Cybersecurity is vital for all businesses, regardless of their sizes and scales. The risk is equally big for small concerns, which is the reason why cybersecurity really matters for them. Let us explain how and why it is important for the smaller players.
Financial implications
First things first, there are major economic costs of such attacks on any business. Theft of corporate information can lead to massive losses to a business, while you may also have to bear the cost of disruption to trading until the issue is resolved. Further, disaster recovery also has dire financial implications. Any financial burden that comes out of the blue can open up a whole lot of problems for a small business and cybersecurity is one that has a far-reaching impact.
Reputational damage
While you may incur the cost of repair and financial damage due to downtime following a cyberattack, there is a bigger risk of reputational damage. This is something that can throw your small business off your feet. Obviously, it will be difficult to survive if the customers stop trusting you because their data was compromised due to your lax attitude. Loss of reputation is dangerous because it can affect your sales and profits and even lead to survival issues in the long run.
Legal hassles
Apart from the direct implications of a cybersecurity breach, your small business may have to deal with serious legal consequences in the aftermath of the incident. Experts at OSIbeyond recommend that small business owners should take compliance very seriously because handling the legal hassles due to non-compliance can break their back. Since regulatory compliances such as GDPR are too complex for a layman to understand, having an expert to ensure their fulfillment makes sense.
Bigger risk to smaller businesses
Another reason why small businesses need to pay more attention to IT security is that they are at a greater risk. Hackers and cybercriminals see them as soft targets, probably because they don’t invest heavily in securing their infrastructure, networks, and systems. Their systems are easy to break in as compared to the ones of larger businesses having strong protocols and seasoned experts backing them up. Dealing with cyber threats, therefore, does not remain a choice for small and mid-sized companies.
Small businesses need to make sure that everyone in their teams is up to date on the prevailing cybersecurity threats. Further, training them to deal with these threats and listing best practices are equally important. Most importantly, it is best to have a managed IT provider to monitor and manage cybersecurity for your small business. Outsourcing these services is regarded as a smarter alternative to having an in-house cybersecurity team because the latter can be a more expensive option.
