Cybersecurity has become a fundamental concern for businesses of all sizes. While there’s a widespread assumption that cyber criminals only target large corporations, small businesses are increasingly vulnerable.
In fact, your small business often faces a higher risk due to tight resources and limited security implementations, which, when breached, can lead to financial costs, loss of customer trust, and even legal issues.
With Alberta’s small business sector growing rapidly, it is important for business owners to protect their company, customers’ data, and assets.
This blog unveils the common cyber risks that small businesses face, tips to strengthen your defense, and how cyber insurance acts as a financial safety net in the event of a data breach.
Small Businesses and Cybersecurity: A Growing Risk
According to recent data, a staggering 43% of cyberattacks specifically target small businesses globally. Furthermore, over 85% of Canadian companies were affected by successful cyberattacks in one year.
Unlike large corporations with dedicated IT teams, security protocols, and substantial budgets for cybersecurity, small businesses usually operate with limited staff and outdated technology, which increases the risk of breaches.
Common Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities
Here are the most common vulnerabilities that many small businesses face:
- Phishing attacks: Phishing is one of the oldest cyber threats, where bad actors trick employers into providing sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card information, through fake emails and websites. Small businesses are easy targets because they tend to have limited cybersecurity awareness or training that large firms would have as counters to the attack.
- Ransomware: This involves malicious software that is designed to encrypt your business data, rendering it inaccessible until a ransom is paid. The financial impact is usually devastating and often includes loss of data, productivity, and significant downtime. Businesses without cyber insurance are often left in financial ruin.
- Weak passwords and insider threats: Simple or reused passwords allow hackers to gain unauthorized access to business systems, while insider threats often stem from negligent employees or those with malicious intent to expose sensitive data and disrupt operations.
- Outdated software: Outdated software lacks updated security patches, making it vulnerable to exploitation. Bad actors can take advantage of known weaknesses in older software versions to breach business systems.
Steps to Get Cyber Safe
To protect your small business from cyber threats, we have compiled a list of actionable steps to improve your cybersecurity setup and protect your sensitive consumer data.
- Employee training: Most business owners shy away from this preventive measure due to the associated costs of cybersecurity training. However, it is important to know that your staff are the first defense line against these threats. Regular training on how to recognize phishing emails and follow cybersecurity protocols can reduce the chances of a successful breach.
- Strong passwords and two-factor authentication (2FA): Requiring employees to use strong, unique passwords for different accounts minimizes the risks of password-related breaches. 2FA also adds another layer of security, as it ensures that even if your business systems’ passwords are compromised, unauthorized users will not gain access without an additional verification step.
- Regular software updates: The digital world continues to evolve. Therefore, ensure that all software patches, including operating systems and security programs, are up to date. You can opt to turn on the “auto-update” feature on your systems to easily implement this measure.
- Backup strategies: Regularly backing up critical data, such as customers’ payment information, is crucial. All backups should be stored in a secure, offsite location. This ensures that data can be recovered in the event of a ransomware attack, hardware failure, or data corruption.
- Install firewalls and antivirus programs: Firewalls monitor incoming and outgoing traffic, blocking suspicious activities, while a regularly updated antivirus program detects and removes malware before it causes damage.
- Secure your Wi-Fi network: Using strong passwords and encryption for your business Wi-Fi network ensures that sensitive data remains protected even if a guest network is compromised.
While these measures can help mitigate cyber risks, no system is entirely foolproof. Cyber threats continue to evolve, making cyber insurance a necessary safeguard to protect you from financial losses when preventive measures are not enough.
How Cyber Insurance Protects Your Small Business
Cyber insurance is designed to protect small or large businesses from cybersecurity threats due to their extensive coverage in critical areas like the following:
- Legal costs: Cybersecurity breaches often result in lawsuits from affected parties. However, businesses with solid cyber insurance coverage can navigate this situation with support from their insurance provider. This coverage can include legal expenses associated with defending claims, as well as any regulatory fines and settlements that may arise from a data breach.
- Data recovery: Recovering lost or compromised data can be both time-consuming and expensive. Cyber insurance assists with the costs of restoring a business data system, and also provides any other support to help your business regain operational stability.
- Business interruption losses: Cyber insurance coverage extends to compensation for operational downtime or income lost during the period of a cyberattack.
At MMI Insurance, we understand that the challenges facing Alberta small business owners are unique, hence the undeterred commitment to provide a financial safety net in case of a cyber breach through our Cyber Liability Insurance coverage.
This package can cover legal, repair, or downtime expenses, thus arming you with all the needed support to bounce back from any breach and regain your customers’ trust. Apart from solid cyber insurance coverage, we extended our trusted protection to directors and officers liability.
Stay Proactive With Our Cyber Insurance
Cybersecurity breaches can be particularly daunting for small businesses in Alberta, especially where the financial and reputational consequences can be severe. However, by following the proactive steps we outlined, you can reduce your business’s vulnerability to cyber threats.
Even with these efforts, though, cyber insurance remains the best security against such attacks. With our comprehensive insurance package, you can have peace of mind knowing we have you covered.
If you are not sure about how our Cyber Liability Insurance coverage works or need clarification on certain aspects of your business, just ask us! For more information, you can call MMI Insurance at 866-222-6996 or contact us online to discuss everything about your business protection needs.
