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By SBA Staff
America’s 28 million small businesses create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year, and more than half of all Americans either own or work for a small business. Small businesses play a key role in the economy and in the nation’s supply chain, and increasingly, they are reliant on information technology to store, process and communicate their information. Protecting this information against increasing cyber threats is critical.
Small employers often don’t consider themselves targets for cyber attacks due to their size or the perception that they don’t have anything worth stealing, a troubling paradox because these are the same companies with the fewest assets devoted to ensuring cybersecurity. Small businesses have valuable information cybercriminals seek, including employee and customer data, bank account information, access to the business’s finances and intellectual property. Small employers may also provide access to larger networks such as supply chains.
While some small employers may already have robust cybersecurity practices in place, many small firms lack sufficient resources or personnel to dedicate to cybersecurity. Given their role in the nation’s supply chain and economy, and their limited resources to secure their information, systems and networks, small employers are attractive targets for cybercriminals.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) established October as National Cybersecurity Awareness Month to educate the public and business owners about cybersecurity. As a small business owner, now is the time to take control of your cybersecurity health, including identifying your risk to different kinds of cyber threats and learning best practices for guarding against cyber attacks. Understanding their vulnerability to these threats can help small business owners make sound, risk-based decisions about investing in cybersecurity protection.
At the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Santa Ana District Office, we make a clear and consistent effort to inform small business owners about pressing issues and connect them with available resources. This past October we presented a cybersecurity event with the City of Westminster, in partnership with the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), educating the gathered small business owners about the latest trends in cybersecurity and providing them with resources to strengthen their cyber defenses. The information and resources below are designed to help small businesses better protect the data of their customers, employees and business partners.