Net Neutrality, Cybersecurity key for SMB owners

Research has found that just over half (60%) of small businesses that experience a breach go out of business within six months. Despite that fact, about half of SMB owners and leaders aren’t prepared for a breach. According to new Switchfast data about 51% of leaders don’t think their business will be targeted by criminals.

SMB leaders have also shared their work email passwords with assistants or colleagues and nearly half are using work computers to logon to social networks.

Because they don’t believe they’ll be targeted, owners are leaving their businesses open to attack. Nearly all (76%) aren’t using multi-factor authentication for work email, and nearly half (44%) use public WiFi networks to work.

For more on the Switchfast report, click here.

Meanwhile, new data out from Insureon and Manta finds that small business owners are as concerned about the FCC’s rollback of net neutrality – which prohibited ISPs from show preferential treatment to companies willing to pay more – as larger and enterprise companies. While only about half (51%) of SMBs were aware of the net neutrality repeal, most did not support it.

Three-quarters (76%), in fact, believe net neutrality’s repeal will give larger corporations an advantage because those corporations can afford to pay more for faster service, and most don’t know if they can afford paying higher prices for faster site-loading times.

Attorneys general from 22 states and Washington D.C. have now filed briefs with a federal court to fight the repeal of net neutrality. Those fighting the repeal say the FCC didn’t properly weigh public safety concerns that could result from a loss of net neutrality. As written in one brief, they say the FCC ignored “substantial record evidence that [broadband] providers have abused…and will abuse their gatekeeper roles in ways that harm consumers and threaten public safety”.