Data Backup and Disaster Recovery Growing in Importance to Small Business Survival
I am continually getting phone calls and emails from colleagues and customers with stories of how they know an SMB whose website was targetted by cyber criminals. The stories are scary for any Small Business owner, who rely on their computer systems to operate their company, and even a small breach can bring their business to a halt, and can ultimately be the difference between making rent or payroll that month! And without a sound IT Support team to rely on, the damage can be painful to your bottom line.
Small business owners falsly believe they are safe from malicious attacks because, afterall, what information or damage would a cyber criminal want from a small mom-and-pop shop? Another lie that SMB owners may fall for is that having a commercially available anti-virus software installed is enough. Without a full data protection product, continually updated, and backups in place, SMB owners are the PERFECT target for cyber criminals. I found this article at Manta.com to back up what I am hearing in the real world:
“Cyber criminals target small business websites because small companies traditionally rely on consumer anti-virus application or firewalls to secure networks and often lack the resources and technical knowledge to deploy effective network security technology and threat management protocols. For owners of websites that have been penetrated by malicious hackers, the cost of malware remediation comes with a painful price as well as lost business opportunities. Unexpected lawsuits, fines, negative publicity, and loss of valuable data can also tarnish business reputations and further disrupt the business operation. Nearly 41% of the companies surveyed by Ponemon Institute reported that security breaches have cost at least half a million dollars to address, when costs such as cash outlays, business disruption, revenue losses, internal labor, and overhead were taken into account. 59% revealed that information assets were the most serious consequence of a security breach, followed by disruption of business operation.” – Read the full article here.
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Learn more about the author Bob Martin
