To say that cybersecurity has been thrown into the public domain over the last couple of years would be an understatement. This is a topic which the media love to talk about and in truth, it’s for good reason. There have been countless cases of individual data being leaked and getting into the wrong hands, and this is a news story that is subsequently in the public interest.

For the SME, the world has got scarier because of this. The public have become more informed about their data and as such, any blip can result in significant unwanted publicity.

As such, security for your SME should be at the top of your priorities. We will now take a look at four of the biggest cybersecurity concerns that can impact your business, and advice on how to avoid them.

Threat #1 – A lack of basic security knowledge

The first threat we are going to talk about isn’t overly technical, but the damage it can do to a business is significant.

In short, some employees just don’t have sufficient security knowledge when it comes to assessing possible methods of attack. For example, they might think that every email which hits their inbox is completely innocent – until it is too late. It’s these phishing emails which can cause some of the most damage to companies, as we’ve seen in the news numerous times over the last year or so.

Following on from this, make sure all of your staff know exactly what to look out for when it comes to possible security breaches.

Threat #2 – Outdated systems

From a more technical perspective, another key problem facing SMEs is outdated systems. Quite a lot of companies are unwilling to invest in upgrading their systems to the latest version, for the simple reason that it costs money to do so.

Unfortunately, by not doing this you are opening yourself up to a whole host of potential security problems. Usually, these platforms are updated because of a security hole. In other words, someone has found something which can be exploited, and the patch is released to fix the loophole.

Sure, you’ll save money by not investing in these upgrades initially, but over time it could cost you a lot more.

Threat #3 – DDos attacks

Out of everything we will look at today, there’s no doubt that DDos attacks are the most technical. They also tend to be one of the most historic – they have seemingly been around since the beginning of the internet.

In short, this is a Distributed Denial of Service. It refers to the process of a large number of hosts attacking a single site. While you might think that a lot of websites have systems which are able to prevent these, the fact that Twitter and Reddit have been victims in the past suggests this isn’t the case.

The only way to overcome one of these attacks is to block IPs but considering the sheer number that can be hitting your server at a given time, this is easier said than done. As such, some attacks can last up to a day and cause companies serious problems.

Threat #4 – Employees using their own devices

In some ways, the thought of an employee using their own device for work activities is a dream scenario for a company. After all, they are not using up valuable company technology.

From a cybersecurity point of view, this is a nightmare though. Now, a lot of larger corporations simply do not allow employees to use their own devices to access company systems. This is because the IT teams at these companies have absolutely no control on what is being allowed on the phone. In other words, some devices won’t have any security on them, and this means that they could be open to all sorts of attacks which results in the loss of data.

This means that webmail services are proving to be more popular than ever before. As these are not installed on a device, but rather on the company’s server, there is a greater level of control and organizations can therefore take precautionary steps to lessen the risk of something untoward occurring.