How Cyberwar is Wreaking Havoc on Small Businesses

As the world continues to change, so does the nature of warfare, where the Internet has become the main battleground for most of the world’s conflicts. 

But where is this headed?

Cyber attacks have been around for much longer than you may think. The first worm was created by Bob Thomas in 1971: a malicious software that replicates itself, using some of the first world computers to spread to others.

Hackers over the years have evolved from individual hackers, to groups of hackers, to today, where entire nation states are devoting billions of dollars to build hacker farms, launching endless attacks to access sensitive data of their competitors.

Most people had been hearing about cyberwarfare for a while but over the past few years, we’ve begun to see real world consequences when a cyber attack on a gas pipeline left thousands of people unable to gas up their car. 

New research from Microsoft shows cybercriminals are making almost 1,000 attempts to hack account passwords every single second.

60% of small businesses hit with a cyber attack go bankrupt within 6 months

Cybercrime is on the rise and successful attacks are now the leading cause of bankruptcy in Small-to-Medium Businesses (SMBs). 

With a wide array of sophisticated attacks in their arsenal, cybercriminals are able to gain access to organizations through stolen credentials. 

How are these attacks so effective? 

For starters, it doesn’t help that 60% of business users insecurely share and reuse weak or stolen passwords. 

All it takes is one unprotected employee to severely damage an entire organization. This simple weakness will be exploited as long as IT teams are not provided with the right tools to monitor their team’s password habits.

Below are the most pervasive cyber threats individuals and businesses alike face today:

• Ransomware: Type of malware that threatens to publish the victim’s personal data or permanently block access to it unless a ransom is paid.
• Password spraying: Using a list of common passwords, such as 123456 and password1, an attacker can potentially access hundreds of accounts in one attack if your employees aren’t using strong passwords.
• Supply chain attacks: Malware targeting vendors and suppliers instead of directly targeting a specific business, making them very difficult to detect and prevent.
• Credential stuffing: When a cybercriminal uses a set of credentials to attempt to gain access to multiple accounts at once.Using automated tools, threat actors can execute multi-front attacks across multiple systems and devices.
• Smishing: aka SMS Phishing, is when an attacker sends a fake message to a mobile device, often containing an offer for a free product or an urgent alert regarding banking or other sensitive information.
• Phishing: Today’s phishing emails are highly sophisticated social engineering attacks designed to entice victims into voluntarily revealing sensitive information such as employees’ passwords.
• Man-in-the-middle attacks: Cyber attack where a cybercriminal intercepts data sent between two businesses or people. The purpose of the interception is to either steal, eavesdrop, or modify the data for some malicious purpose.
• Brute force: Trial and error methods to guess login credentials, security keys or other sensitive information. Armed with a list of common passwords, threat actors test them against as many login portals as they can.
• Keylogging: Malware program that records everything a user types and sends it directly to a cybercriminal

Forgot your password? 80% of all data breaches are due to weak or stolen passwords

Ransomware is now a multi-billion dollar industry where every few seconds, a small business pays a ransom. 

Weak passwords are responsible for over 75% of ransomware attacks, as well as over 80% of data breaches. 

It is imperative that small businesses prevent these attacks by taking proactive steps such as:

• Performing regular system backups
• Training employees to avoid phishing and other scams
• Requiring the use of a password manager

Keeper’s free data breach scan can help you see if your organization’s passwords have ever been exposed to the dark web.

$5.4M is the average cost of a data breach

While the consequences of a cyber attack can be devastating for any business, small businesses are more at risk as they typically lack the cybersecurity infrastructure to protect their organization.

The fallout of such attacks affects more than just finances, usually causing a ripple effect across the organization’s reputation, pricing structure, employee morale and more.

The most frustrating part?

Cyber attacks can easily be prevented.

Protect your business for only $2 per user/per month

What is the highest ranked password manager?

Keeper was named a top password manager by G2, PCMag, Apple App Store, Google Play and more for its:

• Fast and easy set up
• Ease of use
• Autofill passwords with KeeperFill®
• Unlimited devices and peace of mind
• World-class training and support
• Best-in-class security

Keeper Business, our simple and secure password manager, protects your business from cyber attack. Keeper is easy to set up, easy to use and affordable. Plans start at only $2 per user per month and scale based on the size of your business.

Keeper provides simple and secure password management for your business – protecting it against data breaches and cyber threats. Plans start at only $2 per user per month and scale based on the size of your business.

Bonus >> Get a Free 3-Year Subscription to Keeper Unlimited, our premium personal password management software, for attending a Keeper Business demo.