SMBs tend to rely on their longstanding clients to bring in the majority of their revenue, so what happens when clients suddenly cannot trust your business’ reputation? Look no further than if you were to suffer from a cyberattack for an answer. It turns out that being careless with your clients’ data is one of the best ways to sink your reputation.

January 2023 Saw 53% of Surveyed Firms Experience a Cyberattack

This is up from the previous year’s 48%. This number comes from a global readiness survey administered by Hiscox, a specialty insurance company with offices in the United States, the European Union, and Asia.

The Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report 2023 offers other interesting information that businesses can learn from, including what businesses in Belgium have done and what can be learned from them. It’s well worth the time to read through the report, let alone the executive summary.

Of course, we want to make this information as accessible as possible, so if you take nothing else away from the report, at least consider this: the above 53%, and that businesses with less than ten employees were hit more often… accounting for 36% of all attacks.

Clearly, there is a problem here that you need to be concerned about.

Your Clients and Customers Wouldn’t Appreciate Your Business Suffering a Hack

Really, it’s all about broken trust; you shouldn’t expect your customers to take kindly to such an affront to their data security.

There are a few exceptions to this rule. If you leave your customers’ data susceptible to an attack, chances are you will experience a significant challenge recovering from it, in more ways than one. According to information compiled by Varonis in 2022:

• 65% of victims lost trust in the organization that was breached
• 80% of consumers reported that a business would lose them as a customer if their data were compromised
• 85% would tell others about the experience they had, 33.5% taking to social media to do so
• 52% of consumers claimed that security was among, if not the, most important consideration when making a buying decision

The Solution is Simple: Protect Your Business

Ultimately, the best way to protect your business and its reputation is to protect its data. If you want to ensure you keep your business’ data safe, be sure to contact 415 IT at (415) 295-4898.