Small and medium-sized businesses need to pay more attention to cybersecurity, according to experts. — Photo courtesy of Kaspersky

HCM CITY — Digital transformation is creating opportunities for small and medium-sized businesses in Việt Nam but also bringing new risks, according to experts.

SMBs account for 98 per cent of all enterprises and 40 per cent of GDP in Việt Nam.

In the digital era information systems play a very important role in the operation of companies, but holding a large volume of customer information makes businesses a target of cybercrime.

Cyberattacks put firms’ money, data and IT equipment at risk.

If a hacker gains access to one firm’s network, they could do a lot of damage with what they find, such as access to client lists, customer credit card information, the company's banking details, and others.

Cyberthreats are a problem not only for large corporations and governments but also SMBs.

Research shows that globally 22 per cent of small businesses have been the targets of cyberattacks.

A Kaspersky survey in 2018 on “Growing businesses safely: Cloud adoption vs. security concerns,” found that 74 per cent of SMBs were not paying enough attention to cybersecurity.

The company also surveyed more than 6,000 employees of various companies all over the world, and learnt that regardless of company size data breach costs have risen significantly in the last two years.

Yeo Siang Tiong, Kaspersky’s general manager for Southeast Asia, said: “Cyberattacks could cause significant consequences for businesses. Once customers know that their information was compromised, the involved business’ reputation will be tainted, and sometimes this is more damaging than monetary loss.

“Our report shows that 43 per cent of data breaches are caused by employees who either maliciously or carelessly give cybercriminals access to their company’s networks.

“Hence, SMBs should invest more in cybersecurity training for employees to educate them in the basics of cybersecurity.”

He offered several tips for SMBs to beef up their security defences, including basic IT security training for staff, putting a process in place to create and safely store back-ups, controlling access to corporate data, regularly updating patches, and using professional software. — VNS