Ransomware attacks are a significant threat to small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Recent reports on cyber-attacks in South Africa indicate that South African organisations face an average of 1,450 weekly attacks—a 4% year-on-year increase. Despite this growing prevalence, only 26% of commercial entities have cybercrime cover in place.

SMEs may look to save costs across operational function areas such as finance, IT, Human Resources and marketing where often, smaller teams and only essential technologies make it into the overall business strategy. This is understandable as the focus is on tight cost and margin control. Because of this essential focus, cybersecurity could unwittingly fall victim making a SME an attractive target to cybercriminals. The cost of an attack, however, could well be a door-closing event – which is perhaps not clearly understood by the SME market i.e. the average cost of remediating a ransomware attack in South Africa is approximately R6.4 million, which can have a devastating financial impact for smaller businesses.

Moreover, how data is accessed and exploited, even though seemingly harmless activities like using public Wi-Fi, which are often unsecured making them extreme target for cybercriminals to intercept sensitive information like login credentials, financial data or even private messages. Unencrypted networks do not protect your information from hackers thus exploiting end-users’ data.

Raising awareness and implementing stronger security measures are crucial to mitigating these risks.

SevenC’s leads the SME industry with its expertise in cybersecurity and data back-up and recovery amongst other solutions and works with leading vendors that don’t cost a fortune, but will definitely save you that in attack prevention. Contact us and let us work with you to ensure business continuity and peace of mind.