Cyber threats against SMBs to rise further

FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Sohn has warned that small and medium-sized businesses have been increasingly targeted by cyberattacks as corporations bolster cybersecurity investments, CNBC reports. "So what the cybercriminals are doing is theyre pivoting, theyre evolving and targeting the soft targets, which are the small and medium businesses," said Sohn at CNBC's Small Business Playbook virtual event. Small businesses comprised most of the 847,376 public cyberattack and malicious cyber activity complaints received by the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, Sohn said, adding that implementing very basic cyber hygiene, including two-factor or multi-factor authentication techniques, could have avoided such attacks. However, recent CNBC and SurveyMonkey data showed that the rate of small business owners who reported not being worried about being impacted by a cyberattack in the next 12 months rose from 58% in 2021 to 61% in 2022. Moreover, 64% of small business owners expressed confidence in quickly resolving cyberattacks.