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Monday, September 27, 2010

ARTICLE: Three Ways Cybercriminals Can Take Down Small Businesses

Three Ways Cybercriminals Can Take Down Small Businesses




Monday, 27 September 2010 11:04 PM


Cybercrimes against businesses happens more often than you actually think but many organizations are yet to realize how cyber-attacks can drive them out of business. This holds true especially for small businesses out there who think they are too small to become a target.


Symantec has listed three reasons why small business might need to think again about their cyber-security concerns (or lack of):


Steal All the Money in Your Bank Account

One of the most common tools that cybercriminals used is called “Zeus”, which functions as login and password information collector. Believe it or not, the most lucrative victim through this attack is actually small businesses since they have fewer safeguards in place to guard their financial transactions even though a small business generally has more money than a consumer.


Steal Your Intellectual Property and Customer Information


When your operations depend a lot on data, even a single byte of them is deemed very valuable. So, when they got lost or stolen, it represent not only as a security breach but also, a financial lost. In fact, Symantec’s own survey showed that 100 percent of their respondent saw information lost as direct financial cost. This is exactly why SMBs must be very careful with how they handle and process customers’ as well as their own financial data.


Drive Your Customers Away

Social networking and other “Web 2.0” solutions are a hit among consumers but even they are not safe from cyber-attacks. Once a criminal has hijacked a social media account belong to a brand or an organization, they can run scams, send spams and infect unsuspecting consumers with malware. This would obviously have negative effects among customers.


Scary, isn’t it? You can learn more about these factors, their importance and how to tackle them swiftly - for the sake of your business - at Symantec Connect.





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