In brief - All businesses are vulnerable to attacks by
cybercriminals
The risk of a business experiencing a data breach continues to
rise, as do the costs to businesses which experience such breaches.
Cybercriminals can target even small and low-profile businesses, so
SMEs should actively take steps to reduce the risks.
What is a data breach?
The term "data breach" refers to an incident in which
an organisation's data is exposed to unauthorised observers.
This can occur when hackers obtain access by exploiting weaknesses
in a computer system, or employees copy data and make it available
to others, or storage devices containing data are inadvertently
lost.
While the effects of most breaches are dwarfed by Edward
Snowden's notorious leak of roughly 1.7 million classified
documents, typical cybersecurity breaches still pose a substantial
risk to businesses.
