Home Just In SMBs are Facing Growing Cyber-threats in 2023: Kaspersky

SMBs are Facing Growing Cyber-threats in 2023: Kaspersky

by CIOAXIS Bureau

Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) make up 90% of companies across the world, and provide 60-70% of all jobs.

New data has revealed that, due to their comparatively weaker security measures and limited protection budgets, SMEs have become prime targets for cyber criminals.

This comes out of a report from Kaspersky, a multinational cyber security researcher. It identified the key threats to SMBs in 2023, by analysing data from January to May from anonymised data shared voluntarily by Kaspersky users.

In the UK, 32% of businesses reported an attack or breach in the last year, with that number growing to 59% for medium sized businesses. Of those businesses, almost a third (31%) estimate they were attacked at least once a week, according to a report.

The report identified the top threats SMB employees faced in the first few months of 2023:

* Exploit: The biggest threat to SMBs during this period, exploits accounted for approximately 63% of the 764,015 detections. Exploits take advantage of vulnerabilities in a software, allowing the attacker to run malware, and gain unauthorized access to a system.
* Trojans: As the second biggest threat, a trojan attack enters a system under disguise, much like the wooden horse Greeks used to enter the city of Troy in the Odyssey. Once activated, a trojan attack can access and manipulate data, or disrupt the performance of a company network.
* Backdoors: While less common than exploits or trojans, backdoor attacks are among the most dangerous. This style of attack gives threat actors remote control of a victim’s device. From there the threat actor can infiltrate files and confidential data, and more.
* Not-a-virus: this type of malware attack is less dangerous than the first three, however, it is among the most common. The not-a-virus usually carries adware or riskware. Adware can push advertisements, alter search results, and collect your data to show targeted advertising. While riskware is downloaded for a legit application, it serves a future potential risk due to security vulnerabilities. Although technically legal, not-a-virus malware usually sneaks onto devices without the user noticing by misleading, and can become a threat down the road.

These malware attacks are delivered to an employee through any means necessary by the hacker according to Kaspersky, however some more common examples were identified in the first few months of 2023.

Common this year is a method called “smishing,” which is phishing through SMS. Where malicious links are sent through text to the victims phone.

Another common attempt is using false websites for banks, insurance, delivery websites, or any other tools SMBs typically use. These false websites are designed to look exactly like the real thing, and can influence SMB workers to enter login information to the sites, giving threat actors access to private accounts.

– Digit News

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