Small Business, Big Risks: Cybersecurity Threats Facing the SMB

Paying the Price of a Data Breach

Not all organizations must have regularly scheduled penetration tests or vulnerability assessments; however, research has shown that up to 60% of small businesses hacked go bankrupt within six months. It was determined that the average global cost of a single breach costs approximately 3.62 Million dollars. A breach directly affects financial health and significantly impacts the trust consumers have in the organization. For example, after they were breached, Target Corporation's perceptions dropped 55% the following year, while Uber's perception dropped 141%. Up to 80% of customers would stop using a service if their information was included as part of a compromise.

These numbers illustrate that regardless of a legal obligation, the development of an information security program that includes conducting regular penetration tests that validate your organization's security posture is in the best interest of your business's long-term survival. A strong security program will help you ensure that you have the best practices to reduce your risk. Regular testing of your networks, web applications, and your staff (through social engineering) can help identify the risks that exist in your environment. A penetration test or vulnerability assessment provides the ability to reduce the potential attack surface for bad actors, significantly reducing the likelihood of business impact of a breach.

In today's technological and always-online world, no business is safe from potential attacks. From ransomware bots scouring the Internet for a vulnerability that opens your network to them to Advanced Persistent Threats (APT) seeking to spread their reach into any network, there is nearly an unlimited number of threat actors looking to take advantage of your business assets. Also, many small businesses outsource their technical support to vendors that may or may not keep their systems secure. 

At RedTeam, our experienced penetration testers can provide you with a customized security engagement to meet any of your organizational needs. 

Vulnerability Assessments

Vulnerability assessments for small companies that may just be starting to develop their security program. 

• A vulnerability assessment is a wide breadth but shallow approach to assessing the adequacy of security measures. The report will illustrate the analysis of the vulnerability findings and prioritize them by risk. This is the least expensive and least invasive option for identifying potential vulnerabilities in your web application, external, and internal networks.

Penetration Testing

Complete penetration tests for organizations with a more advanced security program. 

• The tester will start with a vulnerability scan and general reconnaissance on the network or the web application in a penetration test. They then move to threat modeling, vulnerability verification, followed by exploitation. This level of testing can identify vulnerabilities not seen through automated tools and can also help determine the level of risk that these vulnerabilities possess if a bad actor was able to exploit them.

Phishing and Social Engineering

Phishing and Social Engineering activities will help verify the effectiveness of training.

• These activities can verify if team members can identify phishing emails and understand what information they can share over the phone or how to verify the identity of callers. Employees are the weakest link in any organization, and making sure security awareness training is current becomes detrimental in maintaining an overall positive security posture. 

To provide the most value to our customers, our assessments include actionable remediation suggestions and a free retest of identified issues to offer the most straightforward path to organizational security. We also provide attack simulations and training to help organizations better understand the risk and indicators of phishing attacks.

At RedTeam Security, you are more than just a customer to us. We strive to partner with our clients and provide deep insights into vulnerabilities and corporate risk to harden your security posture.

As a small business matures its security program and grows, they may move to conduct more advanced testing of their networks and teams. These include:

Purple Teaming

This type of assessment is the most hands-on and would have the testing team working directly with your on-site staff through the whole test to have the most thorough audit of your infrastructure possible. In this type of exercise, RedTeam conducts the penetration test as a bad actor would, with the technical support team reviewing alerts, logs, etc., to ensure they identify the bad behavior and react correctly (perhaps, blacklisting the IP on the network). This is an iterative engagement where each team will respond to the actions of the other. 

Advanced Adversary Simulation

An Advanced Adversary Simulation will utilize the advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures that simulate the real-world attacks affecting a company. In these engagements, a goal is identified, and the testing team will take the time needed to accomplish the goal without getting caught. If they are blocked, they regroup and find a different path to achieve the goal.