Success Stories

Why should Small Businesses invest early on Cybersecurity?

For so long, “Move fast and break things” was a template for startups to be followed but that now doesn’t include data privacy. Data Protection is a cause that all companies, no matter the size, are to fight for. Today’s startups and SMBs face the same relentless pressure to innovate, grow, and scale as the Silicon Valley pupils of the past but must scrutinize plans and manage their norms under new laws that demand much greater care in how customer data is handled.

It is with great rage and caution that attitudes and regulations governing data privacy are changing thus putting executives under a very challenging position. While customer data becomes an essential asset, how you decide to play with it determines your product’s trust value hence impacting business. To comply with existent data privacy laws, companies must be transparent in communicating their data practices and offer users the means to control, export, and remove their data.

No matter the size or age, companies have massive reach and a huge customer base that operate exclusively online. This pushes the issue of cybersecurity to a whole new level of priority. When talking about cyber-attacks big corporations and major organizations are usually targeted, however, this isn’t an accurate image of the world we live in. Massive organizations have a complete, dedicated team of cybersecurity professionals and white hackers who work to protect themselves, most startups and SMBs seldom have the funds (or interest) to invest in their IT security and hence become low-risk targets. 

“When we have a problem, I make one phone call and pretty soon we don’t have a problem anymore”

Hiring IT experts, white-hat hackers or cybersecurity coordinators are both expensive and difficult to pull off for a company that doesn’t specialize in this field. Moreover, diverting a significant amount of resources and your own time (which is even scarcer) might not be worth it. On the other hand, entrusting this task to professionals and looking for professional managed cybersecurity services can allow you to focus on your core tasks, without having to worry about security and the volatility of regulatory standards.

The notorious DDoS that is often triggered by a third-party attack can affect your business more than you know. If your website fails to establish a connection with a first-time visitor in about 8 seconds, you may have catastrophic consequences. With a multitude of options available, potential customers simply choose to go elsewhere if your website appears to be unreliable or non-responsive. Indeed this affects startups and conglomerates alike but while the former can face a series of losses because of this, the latter can do an easier job at recovering from this.

FACTS TO SUPPORT:

  • Over 43 percent of all cyber-attacks specifically target small businesses.
  • According to the popular internet statistic, 9 out of 10 small businesses and startups fail during their first five years
  • 60 percent of all small companies fail half a year after a cyberattack.

The theft of intellectual property that deals with private data of customers might just be the biggest threats and problems that startups and small businesses cannot compromise on. Such attacks may impact the reputation of an SMB so badly that they will never be able to recover from. Losing employee details and business correspondence is scary too.

Cybersecurity hence becomes an inevitable tool that startups must focus on. Web-based attacks, phishing, malware installation and SQL injection are different forms of attacks to which an immunity should be developed against. Denial of service, zero-day attacks and compromised devices closely follow on this priority list.

Cybersecurity has now become affordable for startups with many companies offering focused and powerful solutions that will fully amour SMBs and assure them and their clients of data privacy and other cyber attacks that compromise the business. 

Via: blog.aansystems.com