Data Loss Prevention is Increasingly Important for SMEs

The stories of cybersecurity about data leaks are almost the same, just pick any story and replace the company name, number and details the narrative remains the same. There is no difference.

From a cybersecurity standpoint, these stories often do not address how the victim should react when a company with which they have shared their personal information reports a violation. Who is concerned – customers who have shared their information in recent months or years? What information has been stolen and does this differentiate the people involved? How to use this information and how to know if a person was targeted after a specific incident?

Some companies have set up special assistance services to help victims of cyber-attack. For instance British Airways and Marriott have reacted in this way to serious violations. However, many companies do not have a budget to take such reactive measures and cannot invest in proactive solutions to prevent problems. With a high percentage of companies neglecting IT security, both in terms of staffing and spending, the problem continues to grow.

Big companies are said to spend only 0.2% of their annual revenues on information security, while many SMEs cannot invest at all and suffer the consequences. Only in the past three months DynaRisk discovered that more than 50 small businesses are losing information to criminals. Most of these companies employ fewer than 200 people, but an average of 2,275,550 customers has lost their data and that amounts to more than 300 million records. You might have to segment your OT environment and ensure safety of your system.

In the coming years, for businesses and consumers, the top priority should be to know the depth and breadth of the threats they face and how to overcome them. However, evolving threats and sophisticated hacking techniques used by criminals require extensive monitoring and expertise, which makes any evolution difficult.

It is critical for small businesses and consumers to protect and fight cybercrime and protect themselves with tools and services. In particular, for SMEs, the advantage of creating cybersecurity awareness throughout the company is that the right infrastructure and tools will cover all the bases, greatly reducing the risk of attacks.

By identifying the most vulnerable departments, employees and processes, precautionary measures can be taken to ensure the protection of the company at a deeper level.

To address the growing threats to consumers and SMEs, DynaRisk has created the world’s first computer security score, similar to a credit score, which allows users to understand exactly how secure they are online. The score and the underlying algorithm are displayed in a dashboard with a personalized action plan to help improve and manage a person’s online security and minimize the risk of attack. DynaRisk has also compiled a database of over 14 billion stolen documents, adding over 150 million documents a month. If a user is discovered in an existing or newly added security vulnerability, they will be notified with a notification of what to do next.

More than 60% of small businesses collapse within six months of a cyber-attack. As a result, it is becoming increasingly important to invest in cybersecurity by continuing to train employees and customers. Hackers can enter email accounts to commit fraud, steal social media accounts, post vulgar comments, damage reputation, and so on. In the event of a breach or loss of information, it is important to act quickly to minimize the damage. However, protection against data loss should be the priority, always.

SMEs do not just have to invest in the right IT security management tools, but they must take internal measures to protect their employees and their customers. Two-factor authentication, password management, and employee training are just some of the ways to improve security, even with a low budget.