Arista Networks, the vendor of Arista Edge Threat Management (ETM) has warned that SMBs aren’t always aware of the extent of targeting by malicious actors – assuming that large corporates are the major focus.
According to Arista, citing Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, (DBIR), in fact almost half (46%) of cyberattacks target smaller businesses.
“While IT security is viewed as a priority for most businesses, small businesses are particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks,” the vendor explained in a whitepaper.
“To begin (with), the fact that they are a smaller business means they don’t have the same IT staff in place as large companies, or the large budgets required to shield them from the ever-increasing number of attacks.”
In the 2023 version of the Verizon report, as many as 83% of organisational security breaches involved people external to the organisation in question.
Smaller organisations are at a disadvantage as they don’t have the same amounts of resource available, typically, as large corporates. This often means less robust security – and malicious actors know this, the vendor said.
At the same time, SMBs can be quick to downplay the risks, assuming it cannot happen to them. It’s a great opportunity for the channel to educate and assist.
Yet there are no signs that these types of attacks are going to start declining any time soon. This suggests IT teams at all sizes of company may need to work to better understand long term impacts on network security, the vendor suggests, especially as remote working continues to be popular with employees.
Before 2020 only 20% of businesses embraced a ‘work from anywhere’ culture, according to Arista.
“This tendency to downplay threats happens even as SMBs increase their attack surfaces with the addition of remote and hybrid workers, using more apps and online systems, and adding more and more IoT devices to the network,” the vendor said.
( Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash )
