If you asked small businesses in the UK 10 years ago to list their topmost concerns, security and cybercrime would likely not have been among them. But in recent years something changed: hackers began targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) and wreaking havoc for many businesses.
According the the Federation of Small Businesses, 7 million cyber crimes are committed against small businesses in the UK each year, or roughly 19,000 a day. On average, each attack takes over two days to recover from and costs £3,000. An Information Security Breaches Survey conducted by the government discovered that as many as 74% of businesses in the UK experienced a data breach in 2015.
As big businesses have heavily bolstered their defenses after costly and headline-grabbing incidents, cybercriminals are finding SMEs to be much easier prey, prone to having weaker or non-existent security measures and less funds to dedicate to securing their networks. Meanwhile, the pace of tech growth has rendered SMEs even more vulnerable. As they scramble to upgrade IT and supply their workforce with the latest tools, they often inadvertently open new fronts to enterprising hackers.
Because work is increasingly mobile and reliant on remote employees, devices like smartphones and tablets are becoming common points of entry. Additionally, the host of tools that criminals have at their disposal is wide, from devastating ransomware, which enables hackers to hold company data hostage and name their price, to sophisticated phishing scams that can trick even cybersecurity specialists into releasing sensitive information.
For SMEs, experts say the solution is a comprehensive protection program that can be set up quickly, is simple to use, and securely covers everything from cloud to data center to endpoint. At Dell, security solutions for small businesses include, in addition to comprehensive encryption, cutting-edge technology like artificial intelligence and predictive mathematical models that can address concerns before they even fully develop. The best offense is a good defense, and with operations securely under control, SME leaders are free to get to work with ease of mind.
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This article was produced on behalf of Dell Small Business by Quartz Creative and not by the Quartz editorial staff.