Cybersecurity Risks facing startups

Startups have now become one of the most important factors for the growth and development of any country and they contain a huge part in the intellectual capital and business extension of a nation. These new companies come across some unique personal and financial restrictions & limitations and as a result, Cybersecurity becomes a very low priority for them.

Unfortunately, the entire startup reputation can be destroyed with just a single data breach & attack even before it is established in the marketplace.

Why do the Startups become primary targets of Cyber Attackers?

In the starting days of their business, the companies might not have millions in their account and they might not have collected such personal information from their customers. Now, many of us must be wondering that why would the attackers waste their time and effort on a startup that is hardly making any progress, right?

The answer is very simple. The attackers have good knowledge about the statistics and they know that attacking a startup can reap bigger fruits for much fewer efforts. Some of the major reasons for the attackers targeting the startups are:

• Startups are unguarded & vulnerable: Most of the current startups don’t consider cybersecurity as a priority and therefore they try not to invest or pay attention to these places. They have multiple things to do and achieve with very limited capital and therefore they push the Cybersecurity to the last of their priority list. The Cyber attackers are well aware of this situation and they also know that the majority of startups lack a potential lack of investments and therefore they find this opportunity for an easy attack on the system.
• Startups act as a pathway: Many startups connect their systems to larger corporations that are immune to data breaches. However, the attackers find it easier to access their robust defense systems through the systems of these small startups as they are unprotected from these kinds of attacks. This is how they act as a pathway for the attackers to access the larger corporation’s databases.
• Startups end up paying easily: The experts say that the Ransomware attacks on the startups and small businesses have increased at a tremendous rate in recent years. Attackers realize that most of the startups are unprepared for any kind of cyber-attacks and they are most likely to pay the ransom to the attackers to prevent any kind of data breaches. This is why they become a lucrative target for ransomware attacks.

Apart from the above reasons, most of the startups don’t have any dedicated IT staff to focus on today’s complex threats. This is why the startups should make security a shared responsibility across all the members of the business or the company. Some of the biggest Cyber Security threats facing startups in recent times are:

• DDOS Attacks:

DDOS is known as Distributed denial-of-service attacks. They render the relevant website or server of the company with overwhelming network traffic which makes it inaccessible for a very long time. This downtime can cost companies a huge sum of money as the majority of the business comes at a halt due to it. Small businesses are often forced to wait for downtime and suffer lost sales and productivity.  Also, these attacks are sometimes targeted towards larger corporations indirectly through small startups.

 

• Digital Data and Documents breaches:

This is also one of the most common data breaches that a startup should be aware of. In this type of attack, the cyber attackers try to gain access to the databases of the companies and then steal all the valuable information from them. Most of the information is sold on the black market for high values because they contain all the financial & personal information of the business. Startups having weak securities on their websites & online supports are the prime target for such attacks.

 

• Malware Threats:

Malware and Ransomware are one of the biggest threats to businesses today. This specific malware can infect computers and mobile devices linked to them over a vulnerable network. The attackers then encrypt all the important files related to the business and they won’t encrypt them until they are willing to pay ransom to the attackers. Even after paying the money, they are no assurance that the attackers will decrypt the system files. If the company gets locked out of all the important work files then it can halt the business operations indefinitely.

Therefore the cybersecurity should be the top priority for all the startups available in the market. It would be best to stay prepared and mitigate all the risks with strict policies. Prevention is always better than care.