In the new reality that is working remotely, there has been a notable shift in many workplace traditions and approaches. Happy hours have gone virtual, collaboration tools are more crucial than ever, and company dress codes have relaxed quite a bit. One thing that hasn’t wavered is the prioritization of cybersecurity for companies, regardless of size. In fact, cybersecurity for SMBs has become a particularly important matter in a remote work environment, as reliability of at-home networking is often not as secure compared to a traditional office setting.
“In the new remote work environment, businesses are facing a consistently increasing number of ransomware threats and attacks, so their need for business-grade firewalls and an effective data recovery plan is greater now more than ever,” stated Marc Nagao, Americas Security Business Development Manager for Cisco, in a recent interview with EDGE360. “What’s very dangerous is a lot of times, people working from home are using older routers and their firmware hasn’t been upgraded in a couple years or they might not have the best Wi-Fi security.”
And while these concerns are pressing for any disparate workforce at the moment, it certainly doesn’t mean that cybersecurity isn’t as crucial to SMBs year-round as it is to their larger enterprise counterparts. In fact, there are several misconceptions about cybersecurity for SMBs that Cisco gets to the bottom of in its Big Security in a Small Business World report.
CSO contributor, Anne Taylor, highlights the top five SMB myths in this article, including:
- SMB leadership doesn’t take security and data privacy seriously. The report reveals that there is clear executive investment in security, no matter the size of the company. Specifically, 87 percent of SMBs and 90 percent of large enterprises stated that security is considered a high priority for their leadership.
- Larger businesses don’t suffer from as much downtime and are able to recover faster than SMBs after a cyber-attack. Compared to two years ago, when 40 percent of SMBs reportedly suffered more than eight hours of downtime after a cyberattack, their numbers are much more comparable (and even better comparatively) to large enterprises in this latest report. Only 24 percent of SMBs and 31 percent of large enterprises report more than eight hours of downtime.
- The threats to SMBs are different than larger enterprises. Regardless of company size, ransomware is the top threat to any business and can cause more than 24 hours of downtime.
- SMBs’ infrastructures aren’t as updated as larger companies. On the contrary, 94 percent of SMBs say they invest in infrastructure upgrades regularly or constantly, on par with larger enterprises.
- SMBs aren’t as proactive about threat hunting. According to the report, 72 percent of SMBs stated that they have personnel performing active threat hunting, similar to the 76 percent reported by larger businesses.
If you’re interested in learning more about strategies and trends in cybersecurity for SMBs, you can download the full report from Cisco here.
