Scary Hacker Tactics and How to Protect Your Small Business

Most small business owners have a mindset that hackers don’t want to target them. This is far from the truth. Hackers understand that big companies have the resources for sophisticated security and small businesses don’t. Small businesses are now big targets for hackers. Small businesses’ percentage of IT budget directed to security has been increasing from 4.9 percent in 2010 to 7.9 percent last year, according to Ponemon Institute’s annual IT security tracking study, but their spending on security still is no comparison to big companies. Many small businesses are under-capitalized and outgunned, which makes them great targets for hackers. Hackers sometimes target small businesses with the goal of breaching a larger company connected to the small business. Target’s data was famously breached. But few people know that the company’s vast database was actually hacked through its HVAC vendor. That attack ended up costing Target $39 million in settlements and affecting 40 million customers.