Something which I resisted spending money on for a long time was cyber security for my business, the reasons for this were simply because I just didn’t believe that it would happen to a small company like mine. Thankfully I spoke to cyber security expert Bharat Bhise HNA before it was too late, who was able to educate me on the dangers of not having high level cyber security on my company’s systems.
Bharat Bhise has worked in cyber security for almost 2 decades now and he has seen just about everything that there is to see in this game. Bharat and I go way back and so of course he was the man that I wanted to speak to when I decided that I should probably spend some money on better security. The biggest question which I had for him was why cyber attacks happen, at least on a small business level, and here are some of the things which I have learned from Bharat and others about that.
Easy
Anyone who has a mind which understands coding and software systems is already light years ahead of the general public, and this is part of the reason why it is so easy for many of them to perform attacks. What is even more worrying is that a kid in their bedroom can create a piece of code, which can cause maximum damage to a small business. In fact they could probably create the code in the afternoon and by the next morning they have all of your client’s information and plenty more knowledge about your business that you could ever comprehend.
Faceless
The fact that a cyber attack means that you’re not looking anyone in the face is part of the reason why it happens so often. Robbing a bank or a store requires physical exertion, it requires avoiding police, cameras and alarms, doing so online doesn’t come with quite the same amount of risk. Now naturally if you are attempting to squeeze your way past the FBI mainframe then you will be running a massive risk and you will have eyes on you every step of the way, this isn’t the case if you are looking to take down a small business.
Low Hanging Fruit
When you take on a small business it is easy pickings as most will not have the most sophisticated software in place. Now you may think that there is less incentive for a cyber criminal versus a large hack, but they are able to complete many of these attacks without running much of a risk. When cyber criminals wish to attack, it is far easier for them to take on many small businesses instead of aiming to take out a big fish.
The moral of the story here is that if you have a small business then you need to ensure that you have done all that you can to beef up your security when it comes to cyber attacks.
