Something which more and more businesses are investing heavy money into is cybersecurity and in recent years we have seen a shop rise in both cybercrime and spending on cybersecurity systems. For many years people assumed that only big companies and private individuals would need to pay for cybersecurity but now there are many small businesses who are following suit. Bharat Bhise HNAis an expert in this field and we caught up with him to discover exactly why more and more businesses are taking this step. A cyberattack on a small business can create chaos and this is exactly what it will do to your business if it were to happen
Reputation Destroyed
When customers and employees hand over their personal information to your business they are doing so with the trust that you will look after and carefully store such information. If you are then hacked because your systems were outdated or because you failed to invest in cybersecurity then those details will be available to the highest bidder, which will likely be used for identity fraud. The damage this will cause to your business will be the complete decimation of your reputation. You can expect to lose customers by the boat load and for your name to be turned to mud until that reputation is restored, which of course will be a lengthy process.
Lost Money
The money which your business will lose as a result of its destroyed reputation isn’t even the half of it, there are many other ways in which this is going to hit your finances hard. Initially there will be the lost business hours as the computer systems are checked, rebooted and repaired, which usually takes many days in the case of small businesses as they just don’t have the resources to send in a crack team of professionals to fix the issue. For every hour that you are offline it will cost you a huge amount of money in wages, and in lost business, not to mention the cost of the IT company which will be performing this task.
Trade Secrets
People don’t just hack to steal personal information, they also do so in order to obtain important information about your business. This could be any kind of confidential information from future plans, product production, even contracts which you have signed with other businesses and services or clients. This confidential information in the wrong hands is bad news for any business and it can significantly damage many aspects of the company. Small businesses in particular may find this information fall into the hands of the competition, which will help them to gain a stronger foothold in the market at your expense.
Hackers aim for small businesses because they often have outdated systems and software, which makes it easy for them to breach. It is for this reason why investment in cybersecurity is on the rise, and why it is so important that all small business owners have an eye on their levels of security.
