Small businesses are underestimating cyberthreats

A 2021 IBM study found that 60% of businesses with fewer than 500 employees go out of business within six months of a cyberattack. (Credit: ©sitthiphong/Adobe Stock)

Only 8% of businesses with fewer than 50 employees have a dedicated budget for cybersecurity, says a recently released report from Corvus Insurance. Their survey found many of those small businesses lump cybersecurity into IT or another department’s budget, and 47% have no cybersecurity budget at all. The numbers don’t get much better when you look at slightly larger small companies, either, with only 14% of companies with 50-249 employees claiming a dedicated cybersecurity budget.

It can be easy for smaller companies to fall into the trap of pushing cybersecurity to the side. Most breaches that receive wide media attention are those that happen to gargantuan corporations, but there are plenty of bad actors out there targeting small and medium businesses (SMB), as well.