What measures does your business have in place to protect against cyber crime?
Cybercrime is an increasing threat for small businesses, with new avenues and varieties of scams emerging all the time.
A Scamwatch survey shows that small and micro businesses lost $13.7 million to scams in 2022, a 95 per cent increase compared to the previous year. Despite this, almost half of these businesses reported they spent less than $500 on cyber security per year and rated their cyber security understanding as ‘average’ or ‘below average’ and had poor cyber security practices.1
Most owners are under the impression that their business is too small to be attacked. However, according to the ACCC’s Scamwatch, small businesses are easier targets because scammers recognise that the owners are busy, have less resources and less security measures than large businesses.
Although protection in the form of encryption, multi-factor authentication, secure passphrases etc. is important, it is equally important to be informed on avoiding scams that require interaction. The majority of cybersecurity breaches are attributed to human error, showing the importance of education on ways to identify potential scams and the processes on how to deal with them.
Also read: Overlooked cybersecurity risk to businesses: unsecured printers
