Any Senior business executive or IT Risk Professional is likely to respond emphatically in the affirmative when asked about the role cybersecurity efforts play in their organization. If you ask the same professionals whether their companies are ready to defend against cybersecurity threats, you’ll probably hear answers with far less assurance.

Targets for cybersecurity attacks are no longer just big businesses and organizations. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are being targeted because they lack the means to adequately protect themselves from online threats.

Companies in the US are the target of 43% of cyberattacks, and a frightening 83% of them feel unprepared to handle one if and when it happens, according to Verizon’s Data Breach Investigations Report. The figures demonstrate that SMBs can no longer rely on their relative obscurity to keep them safe.

It’s not necessary to feel overwhelmed by the responsibility of protecting your company’s network environment from cybersecurity threats, and larger businesses aren’t the only ones who can accomplish it.

Here are the biggest cybersecurity risks that businesses are currently facing, along with advice on how to plug these holes and prevent further security breaches.

1. Credential Stuffing

When an attacker uses credentials stolen from one organization to get into user accounts at another organization, this is known as credential stuffing. These credentials are frequently bought on the dark web or acquired through a breach. Despite reports of Disney Plus accounts being hacked in the news, Disney has not discovered any proof of forced entry. This is so because using a victim’s login and password to enter into their account is known as credential stuffing.

Unfortunately, this kind of attack is happening more frequently since it is so simple to carry out. Cybercriminals now have easy access to a database of working usernames and passwords thanks to the development of dark web markets over the past ten years, just like when you order a new book from Amazon.

Hackers can use an automated network of bots to try to get into services like Microsoft 365, Google, AWS, or anything else once they have a list of usernames and passwords. If they discover a set of credentials that works, they have successfully and virtually undetectably accessed that account.

The effectiveness of these assaults depends on employees of an organization repeatedly using personal passwords. According to a 2019 Google report, 65% of users repeat passwords across several accounts, if not all of them. By doing this, the possibility of a credential stuffing attack is simply increased.

How to safeguard yourself

The good news is that if you employ multi-factor authentication and restrict password reuse, this kind of attack can be avoided. Even if the victim logs in with proper credentials, multi-factor authentication prevents attackers from accessing the account without also having access to the victim’s phone. Similar to how limiting password reuse can stop credential stuffing attempts in their tracks. This adds more passwords to remember, but it also removes the risk to your critical systems posed by a popular streaming service experiencing a credential leak.

2. Ransomware

Although ransomware can take many different forms, all of it operates on the same fundamental premise: You must pay a ransom in order to access your data. Attackers frequently launch a second ransom demand to prevent the online sale of stolen data.

Most likely, if you’ve been keeping up with cybersecurity news, you’ve heard about one of the numerous high-profile ransomware attacks. The most recent instance of this was the Colonial Pipeline attack, where a roughly $5 million ransom was paid to recover access to files and data. Similar to Baltimore, which had a ransomware attack in 2019, the city was forced to suspend processing any incoming or outgoing payments.

Typically, ransomware is the last stage of a cyberattack. After an attacker has access to the victim’s network, the payload is what is released. Typically, a phishing, social engineering, or online application assault is the first step inside a network. They can begin to spread ransomware to all the endpoints they can access as soon as they have access to the network.

How to safeguard yourself

While there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for preventing ransomware, stopping the initial breach is a powerful barrier against this attack. According to research, 94% of the malware that small businesses found was delivered to them via email. Preventing ransomware-related financial loss and disruption requires educating your workers about these attacks and how to spot them.

Ransomware avoidance is a challenging task that typically requires a combination of several mitigating strategies. After the network has been compromised, there isn’t much that can be done to stop a ransomware attack, unless the attacker is feeling really well that day. However, there are a number of tactics that might reduce the harm a ransomware assault does.

The number of systems impacted by a ransomware attack can be reduced via network segmentation, regular backups, and an effective incident response mechanism. This could mean the difference between restoring the few encrypted systems from backups and paying a huge ransom.

The method of segmenting your organization’s network involves dividing it into several parts, generally using firewall rules. For instance, many businesses forbid their network’s printers from establishing communications with workstations and servers. This stops an attacker from controlling your entire network in the case that just one device is hacked.

No of the situation, it’s always a good idea to keep a solid incident response policy in place and to back up your data. Maintaining reliable backups in a secure location can make the difference between having to pay a ransom of several thousand dollars and being able to promptly detect a breach and restore your data after a limited amount of downtime.

3. Social Engineering

Instead of compromising a system, social engineering compromises a person, leading them to unintentionally divulge sensitive information. The most frequent way that this happens is through an email phishing scam where the victim is duped into downloading malware or handing over their login information. Typically, a multi-step cyberattack starts with social engineering.

What’s more alarming is that external parties are notified of over 70% of social engineering and phishing occurrences. This implies that when employees take the bait, they frequently are unaware that they have been hooked. Additionally, hackers always devise fresh ways to get through automatic protection measures.