Your Business Has Been Hacked Now What? By Diane Amato
A cyber attack on your business isn't so much a question of “if" but “when" these days. Given the shift to virtual work, rapid digitization and an uneasy economic climate, small businesses have become a prime target for hackers. Here's how to steer your business through a breach.
21 - CanadianSME - March 2022
Many small business owners tend to think of cyber attacks as something that happens mostly to big companies. That’s because reports of multi-national enterprises being hit by hackers dominate the headlines. Unfortunately, the many heartbreaking stories of small business incidents receive far less attention. The reality is, smaller targets can be an easy game, due to (typically) lower levels of IT sophistication, funding and dedicated cyber security staff. Sadly, a cyber attack can be devastating for many small businesses, leading to huge financial costs, significant data loss, operational downtime and/or reputational damage that can be almost impossible to recover from.
Watch for the signs So how do you know your business might have been hacked? Sometimes it’s easy and sometimes it’s not. Signs might include something being “off” with your financials, your hardware or software isn’t working right, your passwords don’t work, or you get complaints about your emails (e.g. contacts say they’re getting spam emails you didn’t send.) Cybercriminals are on average in business environments for 200 days before owners realize they have been attacked. However, some incidents are more obvious.
