SMBs: Most Likely To Be Hacked?

Most small and medium business owners believe that cyber criminals only target large businesses and corporations. They couldn’t be more wrong. In 2015, 62% of all data breaches were against SMBs according to IBM and the Ponemon Institute. Considering that a majority of business entities in the United States are small and medium businesses, and most of them do not have robust information security programs in place, there is definitely an incentive in targeting SMBs instead. Cyber criminals obtain profitable customer and business data from SMBs, and in addition to that, some even use these businesses as a jump-off point to access other entities.

The average cost of a cyber-attack for a SMB is $188,242. In addition to the cost of fixing the damage a hacker can cause to your network, the reputation damage to a small business can have seriously, sometimes irreparable, harm. 60% of SMBs fail within a year while 72% fail within 2 years. In the face of these statistics, it is overwhelming for a small business to know where to start. Having a proactive vulnerability management and remediation process in place will help businesses prioritize which vulnerabilities are critical and how to fix it.

One of our customers was looking at these same statistics when they decided to implement NopSec’s Unified VRM solution. As a small insurance company with fewer than 500 employees, they had a lean IT team that already had a full plate. The customer also had audit requirements that must be met through ongoing vulnerability management and remediation reports. Here is where NopSec came in.

With a central headquarters in New York and multiple locations worldwide, the key priority was to get a unified view of risk throughout the entire organization. Unified VRM provided our client with a global view of each location. With a quick and easy deployment via the cloud, our customer was able to gain a holistic view of the vulnerabilities within their environment.

“It is great to have visibility into our infrastructure and application risk in one place with a scorecard across locations in London, Singapore, Geneva, and New York.”

Once they understood where the key risk was, the next step was fixing these critical vulnerabilities. With NopSec’s remediation workflow, the client assigned the necessary tasks according to who owned each process. By monitoring the progress within the platform, the customer gained control over the remediation process. The window of vulnerability has now grown smaller and smaller.

By not only providing a platform to help them manage their risk, but being a resource for guidance and security expertise, NopSec helped make security of the company a key priority. Using our Unified VRM platform, the customer was able to optimize their perimeter and internal security, focus remediation efforts on critical vulnerabilities, and address their compliance requirements for auditors.

Schedule a demo to understand how you can gain similar benefits from NopSec’s Unified VRM.