4 cyberthreats that can condemn SMEs

Despite the fact that the operation of companies occurs more and more in the digital field, which allows for better productivity, connection and growth, it brings with it vulnerabilities that can condemn the organization to great economic losses and even the closure of operations. During the pandemic, these risks were drastically exacerbated by the change of work from the office to the home that are still paid invoice.

Such is the risk of cyberthreats that for this year attacks are expected to be more sophisticated and spacious which puts organizations in crisis because many of the threats are difficult to predict. Also, for the next two years 91% of companies consider that they may suffer a catastrophic cyber event, reveals the 2023 Global Cybersecurity Perspective report by specialists during the World Economic Forum.

When analyzing the most common attacks, an increase in phishing, ransomware and those of denial of service, better known as DDoS, although they’re not the only ones.

According to Kaspersky data, criminals are using media to extort organizations, they make false reports and use other channels such as the cloud and entering through people through traps such as in emails or messages.

1. Cyber ​​threats

For this reason, any company can be the victim of a cyberattack, since not only large organizations are being sought, but also small and medium-sized ones, for whom a case of this type can lead them to closure due to having fewer resources.

Cybersecurity incidents are the second most difficult type of crisis for small (11%) and medium-sized (15%) companies, only below the drastic drops in sales (21% for small and 15% for medium). Another problem is that only 39% have such a disaster recovery plan, and latent threats are not always known.

With the aim of avoiding more incidents and helping companies, especially SMEs, to have greater security, Kaspersky indicates which are the four alerts of the moment that must be taken into account.

2. Extortion

According to what was observed in hacker blogs, the publications where ransomware acts are reported, in 2022 amounted to more than 500 per month, unlike the 200 to 300 that were made in 2021.

To attack, before the cybercriminals committed the act and communicated directly with the victim to demand a ransom directly, but now, they take advantage of the issue of the security breach.

By posting on blogs “they are seen and used by the media to report on the incident, setting a countdown for the publication of the stolen data. This trend will continue to develop in 2023 because it is a tactic that benefits cybercriminals whether the victim pays or not. Data is often auctioned off, and the closing bid sometimes exceeds the ransom demanded,” says Kaspersky.

3. Posting Fake Leaks

Another risk is making publications about extortion where it is published that a company has supposedly been hacked, and even if this has not been the case, saying that a data leak was sufferedIt harms the company.

“The key to staying safe is to identify these messages in a timely manner and initiate a response process similar to that used for information security incidents.”

4. Leaks of personal data in corporate emails

This problem will continue to trend, since people usually register on portals, either to subscribe to information or to be part of the portal, using their account corporate mail.

With this information, cybercriminals can use weapons of phishing and other traps with which they can access sensitive information of the organization.

For this, work with collaborators must be reinforced so that they know the protection techniques and the risk they must take when browsing between different sites and sharing their information.

3. Malware-as-a-Service

Another potential threat is ransomware attacks that will grow along with the rise of Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) tools, anything that allows anyone to carry out a large-scale attack without having any technical knowledge or knowledge. experience.

On the cloud side, one of the digital tools preferred by organizations, vulnerabilities are also expected, especially since cybercriminals are resorting to means such as Darkweb to acquire access from organizations that have already been compromised.

“To protect a large company or a government institution from trending threats, it is necessary to monitor the organization’s digital footprint,” concluded Anna Pavlovskaya, security services analyst at Kaspersky.