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Cybersecurity breaches only make the headlines when they involve large entities like banks or tech companies, but in actuality, small and medium-sized enterprises are at risk too, and sometimes the damage from these risks is fatal for the SMB.

**Fact: 58% of the victims of cybersecurity breaches are categorized as small to medium size businesses. ([2018 Verizon Breach Data Investigations Report)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324455350_2018_Verizon_Data_Breach_Investigations_Report)**

**What makes SMBs so vulnerable?**

While the potential benefits of attacking a large business are considerably larger than the benefits that can be achieved by attacking SMBs, SMBs present a greater opportunity for success simply because they are easier to breach. Here’s why:

Small and medium-sized businesses tend to think they’re unlikely to be a target or simply underestimate the impact that an attack can have on a business, causing them to forego implementation of security countermeasures.

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/shutterstock_398858656.jpg)

SMBs typically lack the budget necessary to implement a robust cybersecurity plan, so they are not well-equipped in terms of software, technology or personnel and therefore unprepared to defend themselves against cyber threats.

The staff at SMBS is often woefully unaware, uneducated, and untrained about cybersecurity, which decreases the SMB’s ability to effectively mitigate against cyber attacks.

SMBs often lack a detailed strategy that specifies how they will respond to a cyber-attack; a great deal of the damage caused by cyber-attacks is a result of failing to have detailed security countermeasures in place.

Even when an effort has been made to establish security countermeasures, the security infrastructure is often minimal, or the business relies on too many security vendors, which complicates the security infrastructure.

**Fact: In 2018, 2 out of 3 all cybercrimes in the U.S. targeted small-to-medium sized businesses. (**[**U.S. Small Business Administration**](https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/2018-Small-Business-Profiles-US.pdf)**)**

**The Costs**

Some SMBs might find the cost of cybersecurity prohibitive, but the cost of not having cybersecurity after they’ve been attacked can be devastating. According to techrepublic.com, an average data breach will cost an SMB $120K, and that figure doesn’t even include the cost of breach recovery, which Kaspersky Lab Report reports as approximately $149K, or damage to the business’ reputation.

Another potentially crushing cost to SMBs when they’ve been attacked is the cost of cyber attack remediation. Remediation costs come into play when hackers use the SMB as a backdoor into larger companies, their primary targets. These costs can be ruinous for small to medium-sized enterprises.

**Fact: 60 percent of the small and medium-sized businesses that were hacked go out of business after six months.**

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/bigstock-146322998-4118491697-1563091189332.jpg)

**But the outlook is not all bleak…**

SMBs can protect themselves; in fact, the processes and procedures used to protect a company’s data don’t even cost that much and they’re highly effective. Below is a list of some crucial measures that SMBS can implement to protect themselves:

1.  Make cybersecurity part of your overall business plan and budget sufficient resources for implementing a robust security plan.
2.  Have a disaster recovery plan in place in case you are attacked such as saving data to a server and then backing up that data on another location. If possible, use a cloud backup solution, which is considered to be the most secure option for businesses.  And make sure the backup is done automatically – don’t rely on employees to do it themselves. Data restore capabilities are another important aspect of the recovery plan. SMBs need restore solutions that are fast and easy to do, and they should allow you to recover your data up to the moment before the attack.
3.  Raise the awareness and vigilance level of your employees by training them about cyber risks and threats, and their implications.
4.  Choose an antivirus solution that covers all attack routes and stops threats in real-time. This means taking a layered approach to security. Antivirus protection should include the following features:

This means taking a layered approach to security. Antivirus protection should include the following features: 

**Continuous anti-virus and anti-malware** scan that identifies viruses and other threats; **real-time protection** against new threats; **threat removal** capabilities that eliminate malware and other cyber threats to your business; **camera and microphone protection**; **tracking protection** that stops and prevents cookies, scripts and trackers that follow and invade company data; **ransomware protection** that blocks malicious files and guards against encryption attempts; a **high-grade network firewall** that protects all company computers at the network’s edge as well as a built in firewall enabled on each computer; **secure browsing** to guard against malicious URLs.

shutterstock_444257119.jpg

6 tips for celebrating National Online Learning Day and keeping your data safe!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Online learning certainly has many advantages; it is convenient, cost-efficient, environmentally friendly, and helps knock down educational and socio-economic barriers. However, for the 40 million students who recently fell victim to the famous Chegg breach, online learning might just be a painful reminder of the hazards of the online atmosphere. The **Chegg cybersecurity breach** exposed the email addresses and personal information of 40 million students of the Chegg online education company and left their digital privacy vulnerable. The breach also exposed students’ physical addresses, which could potentially lead to physical security risks. Edmodo, a similar type of education platform, also experienced a cyberattack, where details from millions of user accounts were stolen and offered up for sale on the dark web.

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/bigstock-Developing-Programming-And-Cod-269524045-2-3787003206-1562591500571.jpg)

### What to expect in the near future

Magnifying the problem is that very little industry standardization and regulatory insight has kept pace with the rapid growth and proliferation of e-learning platforms. According to insidehighered.com, today **nearly ⅓ of all students take at least one course online**; it is this rapid rate of growth coupled with the e-learning industry’s lack of readiness for cybersecurity threats, that make e-learning platforms highly vulnerable to cyberattacks. Furthermore, it’s reasonable to assume that as the e-learning industry continues to develop, we will see a corresponding increase in the number and frequency of data breaches. Fortunately, there’s no need to panic. Even if industry regulations aren’t where they should be, there are effective measures you can take to protect your data and privacy.

### 6 Cyber Security Tips for Safe Online Learning

**Always use strong passwords**. Strong passwords are harder for hackers to crack. For a password to be strong, it should be at least 12 characters and contain numbers and symbols as well as both upper and lowercase letters.

**When you’re finished using a site, log out**. When you login to a website, a cookie, that is used to identify you, is created on your browser. When cookies are stolen, your account can be compromised. This is a problem particularly for sites that hold sensitive information, like online learning platforms which hold your personal data.

**Don’t give out personal information to someone you’ve met online.** Although this one might be a no-brainer, a reminder is always in order. Online courses are thoughtfully designed so that students can interact with each other via discussion boards, videoconferencing, and email. This is a good thing, but handing out personal information to people you’ve never actually met, no matter how well you think you know them, is never a good idea.

**Avoid saving personal data on storage devices such as Google or Dropbox.** While cloud services such as Google Drive do take strong security measures to protect your data, privacy is not necessarily their strong suit. Google’s Terms of Service, for example, explicitly give them unlimited access to your personal data. 

**Install an antivirus (AV) program on your computer**. Probably the single most important measure you can take to secure your digital privacy is to install antivirus software. You can get powerful [free computer protection](https://www.reasonsecurity.com/), like **Reason Essential**, that provides **real-time, comprehensive security with tracking protection, webcam and microphone protection** and much more. Without AV software, your password can be hacked, your bank account emptied, your computer hijacked, your personal identity stolen, etc.

**Keep your software up-to-date**. Always keep your AV program up-to-date. AV software rely on several detection methods and one is signature-based, which means that it uses a database of known signature viruses. If your AV software is not current, it might not catch newer viruses. Similarly, your operating system (OS) should be kept current as well. Hackers are always finding new and creative ways to exploit computer operating systems, so new versions must be released in order to patch security holes.

### Stay safe on National Online Learning Day

National Online Learning Day rightfully celebrates the accomplishments in online learning and the people and technology behind these accomplishments, but it should also serve as a reminder of the growing cybersecurity threat. Don’t become one of the next 40 million students whose data and privacy is exposed because of a cyberattack. Make sure you stay safe online.

![](https://cms.reasonlabs.com/cdn/shutterstock_701467699-e1577187234290.jpg)

#Malware

Think SMBs Fall Under the Radar as Targets for Cyber Threats? Think Again.

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All Tricks and No Treats.