As a small business, how would you survive an abrupt demand for $250,000? It’s ransomware, and as this poll shows, that’s what an incident would cost a small business. Just why has ransomware exploded on to the scene in 2017? Because it works. Because most bad guys are capitalists and are driven by the profit motive. Because most small business have not taken the time to guard their data. Because they are soft targets. What makes the news headlines are the attacks on large companies like Merck, Maersk or large government, NHS Hospitals in the UK, etc. But make no mistake, small businesses get hit every day – they’re just not in the headlines. After all, more people miss work due to the common cold, but this never makes the news. On the other hand, a single case of Ebola and whoa!

Unfortunately this leads to confirmation bias. Since you don’t hear about it, it must not be a thing, right? That’s dangerous thinking for a small business. The large corporations can bounce back from cyberattacks; they have the depth of pocket to hire the experts needed during the crisis. But how does a small businesses cope? Breach costs can go to $250,000, not to mention the destruction of client trust if word gets out that confidential information was leaked.

So what do you do? Try these three steps:

	Educate It starts with you and your employees. Know your digital assets and maintain an up-to-date inventory. Invest in training of employees, as they are the weakest link in the IT security game.
	Protect Minimum diligence includes up-to-date anti-virus, a managed next-gen firewall and regular patching. Step it up with endpoint protection. Regular reviews of user and system activity is a solid, low-cost improvement to close the gap.
	Co-source Get an expert on your team. It’s too expensive to get dedicated resources, but this doesn’t mean you have to go it alone.  Co-sourcing is an excellent technique to have an expert team on call that specializes in cybersecurity.

***Some images from FreePik.com