Advocacy group National Small Business Association’s research shows that an average of $32,000 has been stolen by cybercriminals from small businesses. The issue with small business cyber protection is they do not have the same quality of resources at their disposal as larger businesses. In fact, small businesses are required to sign an agreement with their bank in order to be protected from online theft. Even with that agreement in place, those businesses must comply with the security measures outlined or the contract is at risk of falling through. And even if the business cooperates, it remains likely that the victim will be forced to spend time and money to mitigate damage and cover fees. Furthermore, small businesses are less likely to have cyber departments and therefore are more vulnerable to online attacks.
These criminals mostly attack through use of wire transfers, which consists of sending official-looking emails to a company and tricking the email recipient into transferring money from a company account into another specific account. The FBI reported in August 2015 that since 2013, more than 7,000 U.S. companies had fallen victim to such attacks, with most of the attacks coming between January and August of 2015. To help prevent this from happening to you and your company, be sure to consistently check bank statements and use banks that utilize a two-factor authentication system.