Are Certain Types Of Business More At Risk Than Others?

Okay so here is a fact for you – the biggest name businesses with the biggest websites raking in the most money online are the ones that are most at risk from cyber criminals. Right?

Actually, that isn’t necessarily true – and that is why so many smaller businesses are caught short with their woefully dismal attempts at internet security.

There is no question that a huge business selling goods over the internet is obviously going to be taking in a lot of money, and therefore they will have plenty of card details and customer details in their possession. But that doesn’t mean that smaller businesses aren’t equally – or perhaps more – at risk than they are.

Let’s consider this for a moment. The biggest sites know that their success rests partly on how secure their business is. If they cannot protect the information of their much valued customers then their business is not going to be a very stable one – because if the worst happened they could quite easily end up losing everything.

And it would arguably be far worse for a huge business like this, because they have the funds and the wherewithal to make sure they get the best in the business when it comes to hiring internet security consultants to check the security of their systems. There is really no excuse for them not to take every single measure in the book and more besides to protect everything on a regular basis.

But things shouldn’t be so different for smaller businesses should they? Of course they shouldn’t, but the fact is that smaller businesses may not have a security department or even a specific person tasked with the job of making sure everything is kept as secure as possible, and the right people may not be sent in from time to time to make sure that is the case.

That is why the smaller businesses who take a lot less money than the huge multinational ones are often more at risk, because cyber criminals know they are far less likely to put up as many barriers for them to get over than the bigger companies will.

And when they have found a loophole and they have got in, they may well try and do so again – just as a house burglar may hit the same house again once all the stolen goods have been replaced. That knowledge they now have of how to break in can be used again if the owners haven’t taken the right steps to ensure that the systems and defences have been changed or upgraded to prevent another attempt at hacking – or breaking – in.

Businesses that take payment information are clearly going to be more attractive to some cyber criminals than those who don’t, but since some hackers are out simply to cause trouble you should always assume that your business is a likely target. If you don’t then you are putting yourself at an unnecessary risk – and your business could suffer greatly as a result.

By: Rob McAdam

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Pure Hacking helps protect your Internet security by providing world-class penetration testing and ethical hacking risk management services. For a free consultation, please visit Ethical Hacking.