Cisco to SMBs: 'Make sure your insurance covers cyberattacks'

Vendor claims half of SMBs have been breached in the last 18 months

Cisco has warned SMBs to make sure their insurance covers cyberattacks, after revealing that over half of them have been breached in the last 18 months.

The vendor surveyed 1,816 SMBs across 26 countries and found that 53 per cent of respondents had experienced a security breach.

The report also found that such breaches are costing one in five SMBs between £1m and £2.5m, with 29 per cent of those surveyed saying that breaches cost them less than £76,000.

Paul Barbosa, senior director of security sales at Cisco, advised SMBs to take advantage of the upcoming European Cybersecurity Awareness Month to educate employees on the most common attack forms and how they can avoid them.

"Beyond that, review your insurance policies to ensure they cover loss of business stemming from a cyberattack, and ensure your crisis communication plans enable faster recovery and help prevent reputational damage," he wrote in a blog post.

"Companies don't have to recreate the wheel to establish an effective security programme; they simply need to look around them, learn from others in the industry, and apply measures that will bring value in their own community."

SMBs face around 5,000 security alerts a day, but investigate only 55.5 per cent of these.

Phishing is the most common type of cyberattack on these companies, comprising 79 per cent. Ransomware and advanced persistent threats follow at 77 per cent, with DDoS attacks and proliferation of employees using their own devices for work purposes rounding out the top five security threats to SMBs.

Appropriately trained staff play a large part in warding off these attacks, with 92 per cent of SMBs appointing an executive responsible exclusively for security.

"A final recommendation for SMBs to drive improvements in security is to recognise that incremental change is better than no change. Remember to keep security above everything," said Barbosa.