Safeguard your business from data breaches

If you’re like many small business owners, when you hear the words “data breach” you think of the highly publicized incidents involving large corporations that have gotten a lot of attention from the media. Such as:

• Target store’s 2013 breach in which up to 110 million records were compromised and hackers made off with roughly 40 million credit and debit card numbers, leaving Target to pay over $250 million in damages.

• Sony Online Entertainment, which saw 102 million customer records compromised in 2011 and ultimately paid $171 million in damages. The hackers responsible have yet to be identified.

• Anthem insurance, in which nearly 80 million records were compromised, some included Social Security numbers.

What rarely makes the news are the many hacking incidents involving small businesses. The likelihood that a small business will fall victim to a potentially costly data breach is staggeringly high. The fact is that 74 percent of small and midsize businesses reported an information security breach in 2015.

Unfortunately, the underreporting of small business data breaches is likely the primary reason that most small business owners don’t believe they’re at risk for a cyber attack. In fact, 82 percent of small business owners say they’re not targets for attack.

Not only are these attacks incredibly common, but they can also be devastating. With an average cost of a data breach being $4,000,000, it’s easy to understand why 60 percent of small businesses fold within six months of falling victim to data theft. This cost doesn’t even factor in the significant additional and unavoidable costs of investigating and remediating a data breach. Get the booklet