The cost of cybercrime
The FBI recently released their annual Internet Crime Report and it shows that in 2018 the cost of cyber-enabled crimes was a staggering $2.7 billion in financial loss. The FBI also received over 350,000 cyber-enabled crime complaints in 2018. The most costly complaints were business email compromise, romance or confidence fraud, and investments frauds.
Reports like this from the FBI reinforces the need for small businesses to be cyber-aware. While a small business may be limited in resources, this does not mean they are helpless. Small businesses can better position themselves by enforcing strong password policies and strong acceptable use policies for access business data and using business technology. Small businesses can deploy password managers and enable multi-factor authentication, especially on the most critical of business accounts. Small businesses should identify their business critical data and focus on protecting it specifically. Small businesses can should also regularly train their employees and raise awareness of current cybersecurity threats and scams.