• by Ray Schultz , June 13, 2023

Sixty-one percent of small businesses (SMBs) have been hit by a successful cyberattack in the last year, according to a study by BlackFog. 

The biggest impact was business downtime, which affected 58% of small and medium-sized businesses -- while 39% reported a loss of customer data.    

Of the affected IT decision makers, 87% have experienced two or more successful attacks over the past 12 months. 

For 41% of the respondents, knowledge of cyberthreats was the biggest challenge they faced.  

In addition, 87% feel their IT providers were focused on understanding their cybersecurity challenges. But only 39% of say they understood all these challenges. 

Yet 26% trust providers and partners, versus 21% who have confidence in colleagues, 16% who trust analysts and 10% who trust their peers in other organizations. 

In addition, 69% are more likely to ask their partners for advice on new cybersecurity solutions over last year. 

"Cybercriminals naturally gravitate towards targeting organizations with the lowest level of protection and this typically means small to medium businesses come under fire", says Darren Williams, founder and CEO of BlackFog.  

Williams adds: "With 89% of all attacks involving some form of data exfiltration, it is paramount for organizations to prioritize the protection of their most valuable business critical asset, their data." 

On behalf of BlackFog, Sapio Research surveyed 400 IT decision makers in the U.S. and U.K. from companies with 100-999 employees.