Small Businesses vs Hackers: Sure You Won't Be Attacked?

The world of Internet security is full of myths, false beliefs and... dangerous convictions. For example, a good percentage of small companies naively believe they are immune from the disease called “cyberattack”.

Hackers would prefer victims such as large companies, major retailers and governments. But how true is this? Recent statistics are clear: 73% of attacked companies have fewer than 1000 employees, and of these, 93% have fewer than 100. Still sure you are immune?

For hackers this is paradise on Earth. Small companies do not protect themselves, and that means easy access to systems.

There is therefore a need to take precautions, to avoid financial and economic damage for small companies.

Train Employees

Hackers do not use only sophisticated algorithms to carry out their exploits; they are also skilled at winning people's trust. This can be a good attack strategy: by providing interesting data, names of colleagues or conferences we attended, for example, hackers could gain our trust.

For this reason, employees must be trained as well as possible to recognize attempts to obtain confidential information by email, phone or even in person.

Effective IT System Management

Training employees is not enough: IT systems must also be kept under control. How? Here are three possible and effective strategies:

• Create a list of allowed applications: this will block any malicious programs. How? Easy: the only applications that can run are those on the list.
• Update applications: software vendors periodically fix security problems in their programs. It is therefore wise to install the patches released by vendors, making the system secure.
• Update the operating system: as with applications, updating the OS is necessary to eliminate bugs and flaws in the code that hackers could use to enter the system.
• Administrative access: only those who understand the security implications should have access to system administration.

Following these tips is a first step toward making your company more secure.

If you have a portal, reserved area, website or application to protect, request a risk assessment from sector professionals. EasyAudit will help you identify the vulnerabilities of your IT system. EasyAudit also lets you obtain the EasyAudit Checked seal, a guarantee for your customers.