The holiday shopping season is in full swing at stores across the country.

And as small businesses keep selling, they're becoming increasingly more vulnerable to cyber criminals. Sophisticated hackers recognize that most small businesses — 79% by our research — don't have a cyber security plan, even though almost two-thirds of small businesses have been victims of cyber security crimes.

In late September, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a warning about the cyber security challenges facing small- and medium-size businesses, which accounted for 60% of cyber security incidents in the past year, up from 48% the prior year. The reason for the upswing: Cyber thieves know that large enterprises are hiring cyber security experts and are getting harder to hack, so they're targeting more-vulnerable small businesses with weaker security and point-of-sale terminals.

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