[hking12]

Small business owners have been investing less money into their cyber defense. This is making them more vulnerable to getting hacked or exposed.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/small-businesses-want-to-invest-more-in-iot-despite-cyberthreats.html

Topic

[kanyiakak2020]

Yes..you are correct. In fact, the frequency with which these attacks are happening is also increasing, with more than half of all small businesses having suffered a breach within the last year and 4 out of 10 having experienced multiple incidents.

[AJ]

True! Most small businesses don’t even think about cyber security. Their main goal is survival and making profit. Security lacks in most of this environment and raising that awareness is important.

[mushari]

Awareness in the cyber world is still one of the biggest problems as business executives and employees are unaware of the risks that the cyber world holds

[ngajana2]

Small businesses need to keep following practices, in order to keep the company cyber safe.
1) Train the employees for basic internet practices to prevent cyber attacks.
2) Keep up to date antivirus software.
3) Use firewalls, and encryption to protect data.
4) Use strong passwords.
5) Use multi-factor authentication.
6) Backup data automatically, or at least weekly.
7) Prevent access computers by unauthorized persons.
8) Make roles for users.

[amartinez]

I totally agree with @ngajana2 in terms of of the practices to keep the company cyber safe from attacks. BUT in my opinion I would add an additional one considering the times we are experiencing which is from my understanding is: all necessary resources to comply with the above 8 steps.

[amartinez]

Considering my previous mention about to deploy all necessary resources which include human and financial. What is the opinion of this forum about the crisis spefically affecting the Small Businesses’s finances as a result of this pandemic times which forced to close their businesses for a such long unpredictable time due to quarentine..??? Are the government in conversations with financial institutions/banks to “inject” money via convenient loans to prevent them (SME’s) from this unseen situation..???? Is there any information about how to rescue these small business to let them use all possible resources to keep their business going and also have the necessary resources to proctect their systems from cyberattacks, if their systems gets “outdated” due to other financial priorities such as salaries, taxes, etc..??

[ray.cabrera]

Small business are special. If you have ever run a business you would understand.
1. Make money
2. make money
3. build the brand
4. expand
5. number 1.
so, cyber security is a liability however having said that you can simplified enough so you can make it affordable and provide the right protection. Start with:
1. Have some poster on phishing email to train staff
2. run a quarterly roadshow and demo on how to spot phishing emails
3. patch and update systems
4. Use MFA/2FA
5. Use a leading, most have good pricing options, Advanced endpoint protection. or look into getting a EDR solution.
6. Back up your data. Beware of how to do this properly.
7. have a process that describes the steps on how to deal with an incident and how/who to contact.

[Author]

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