According to a report by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB), cyber fraud is an increasing concern for small businesses.
Since March of last year, many have been forced to digitize, with nearly a quarter of them experiencing some form of cyberattack.
Many people in B.C. either own a small business or know someone who does and Tony Anscombe, the Chief Security Evangelist at ESET, says because more people have shifted their services online, people are taking advantage.
“More businesses are seeing cyber attacks because more businesses have moved to the digital environment, and that can be across a number of things, whether that’s e-commerce systems, remote working, online ordering for their customers. It could be a number of different reasons. Cybercriminals also see the opportunity as more and more companies go down the path of digital transformation than cybercriminals see this as an opportunity to monetize and attack those businesses.”
He says there could be attacks going on without you even knowing and it’s important to take the right steps to prevent your business from being targeted.
That includes keeping your staff up to date on all the right cybersecurity measures.
“There’s the planning stage upfront of understanding what’s valuable in a business and what it is you need to protect. And then there’s the protection of those assets. One of the big ones in there is making sure employees have the right awareness training,” Anscombe says.
“Bear in mind you do business with bigger players so cybercriminals might be using you to leverage a relationship or a partnership with somebody else. Make sure you understand all of the parts of your business that need to be protected and that security is at the front of your mind and it’s not an afterthought when you’re doing something.”
