SME SME
Nothing is too small
for hackers Data shows that it is profitable to go after SMEs to procure information about their bigger partners Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya
L
eo Hisnaeje (name changed) never really believed that his small business, which has an annual turnover of less than €2 million, could attract the attention of a hacker. However, last month he spotted emails coming from random places on the official id of the company. He chose to ignore it but eventually, after a few days, decided to call an expert who said that the account was hacked. In today’s digital world, companies can no longer afford to ignore hacking. And though the big companies have the power of money to restrict, if not
completely block, the hackers, it is the smaller firms that suffer. And though SMEs would like to believe that they won’t garner the attention of hackers, the truth is no one is too small to hack. According to key findings from PwC’s ‘Global State of Information Security Survey 2015’, large organisations (gross annual revenue of $1 billion) detected 44% more incidents compared with last year. Companies with revenue of less than $100 million detected 5% fewer incidents this year. “The potential explanation may be that small companies are investing less
in information security, which might leave them both incapable of detecting incidents and a more tempting target for breaches. Sometimes, SMEs consider themselves too insignificant to attract hackers, which is a dangerous misperception,” says Chuan-Wei Hoo, CISSP, technical advisor, Asia-Pacific, (ISC)2, a non-profit organisation specialising in information security education and certifications. “SMEs think the richest pickings lie in the hands of those companies with the biggest assets. The fact is that size doesn’t matter. Vulnerability is not the exclusive preserve of big business:
Apr - Jun 2015 International Finance Magazine
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