{"id":38913,"date":"2023-01-03T07:31:42","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T04:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saudishopper.com.sa\/en\/?p=38913"},"modified":"2026-03-28T02:30:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T23:30:30","slug":"top-5-smb-threats-to-watch-out-for-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saudishopper.com.sa\/en\/top-5-smb-threats-to-watch-out-for-in-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 SMB threats to watch out for in 2023<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The statistics<\/a>\u00a0show more than 60% of all small and medium businesses experienced cyberattacks over the course of 2022.\u00a0Small and medium-sized companies are great contributors to the global economy: according to the World Trade Organization, SMBs\u00a0represent more than 90% of all businesses worldwide<\/a>.\u00a0Due to cyberattacks, businesses may lose confidential information, finances, valuable market share \u2013 and there are plenty of ways criminals are trying to reach their goals. Small enterprises\u00a0consider<\/a>\u00a0a cybersecurity incident as one of the most challenging types of crises.\u00a0Kaspersky experts analyzed vulnerable points SMB might have and outlined some major cyberthreats for entrepreneurs that they must be aware of in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Data leaks caused by employees<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are different ways a company\u2019s data may be leaked \u2013 and, in certain cases, it might happen involuntarily. During the pandemic, many remote workers used corporate computers for entertainment purposes, such as playing online games, watching movies, or use e-learning platforms – something that continues to pose financial threats to organizations. This trend is here to stay, and while during 2020,\u00a046% of employees had never worked remotely before<\/a>, now two-thirds of them state they wouldn\u2019t go back to the office, with the rest claiming to have a shorter office work week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The level of cybersecurity after the pandemic and initial adoption of remote work by organizations en masse has improved. Nevertheless, corporate computers used for entertainment purposes remain one of the most important ways to get initial access to a company\u2019s network. Looking for alternative sources to download an episode of a show or a newly released film, users encounter various types of malware, including Trojans, spyware and backdoors, as well as adware. According to Kaspersky statistics, 35% of users who faced threats under the guise of streaming platforms were affected by Trojans. If such malware ends up on a corporate computer, attackers could even penetrate the corporate network and search for and steal sensitive information, including both business development secrets and employees\u2019 personal data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, there\u2019s a tendency to blame ex-workers of possible data leaks. However,\u00a0only half of recently surveyed organizations\u2019 leaders<\/a>\u00a0are confident that ex-employees don\u2019t have access to company data stored in cloud services or can\u2019t use corporate accounts.\u00a0An ex-colleague may not even remember they had access to such-and-such resource. But a routine check by those same regulators might reveal that unauthorized persons do in fact have access to confidential information, which would still result in a fine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. <\/strong>DDoS attacks<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Distributed Network Attacks are often referred to as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. This type of attack takes advantage of the specific capacity limits that apply to any network resources \u2013 such as the infrastructure that enables a company\u2019s website. The DDoS attack will send multiple requests to the attacked web resource \u2013 with the aim of exceeding the website\u2019s capacity to handle multiple requests and prevent the website from functioning correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attackers resort to different sources to perform acts on\u00a0organizations\u00a0such\u00a0as banks, media assets, or retailers – all frequently affected by DDoS attacks. Recently, cybercriminals targeted the\u00a0German food delivery service<\/a>,\u00a0Takeaway.com (Lieferando.de), demanding two bitcoins (approximately $11,000) to stop the flood of traffic.\u00a0Moreover, DDoS attacks on online retailers\u00a0tend to spike during holiday season<\/a>s, when their customers are most active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s also a growing trend towards gaming companies gaining scale.\u00a0The North American data centers of\u00a0Final Fantasy 14<\/em>\u00a0were attacked in early August<\/a>. Players experienced connection, login, and data-sharing issues. Blizzard\u2019s multiplayer games \u2014\u00a0Call of Duty<\/em>,\u00a0World of Warcraft<\/em>,\u00a0Overwatch<\/em>,\u00a0Hearthstone<\/em>, and\u00a0Diablo: Immortal<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 were\u00a0also DDoSed<\/a>\u00a0yet again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many DDoS attacks go unreported, because the payout amounts are often not terribly big. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Supply chain<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being attacked through a supply chain typically means a service or program that an organization has been using for some time has become malicious. These are attacks delivered through the company\u2019s vendors or suppliers \u2013 the examples can include financial institutions, logistics partners, or even a food delivery service. And such actions may vary in its complexity or destructiveness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, attackers used\u00a0ExPetr<\/a>\u00a0(aka NotPetya) to compromise the automatic update system of accounting software called M.E.Doc, forcing it to deliver the ransomware to all customers. As a result, ExPetr caused millions in losses, infecting both large companies and small businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another example is CCleaner, one of the most famous programs for system registry cleaning. It is widely used by both home users and system administrators. At some point,\u00a0attackers compromised the program developer\u2019s compilation environment<\/a>,\u00a0equipping several versions with a backdoor. For a month these compromised versions were distributed from the company\u2019s official websites, and\u00a0downloaded 2.27 million times,\u00a0and at least 1.65 million copies of the malware attempted to communicate with the criminals\u2019 servers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recent examples that drew our attention are\u00a0DiceyF incidents<\/a>, that were performed in SouthEast Asia. The prime targets were an online casino developer and operator and a customer support platform, that were attacked in The Ocean 11 style.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. <\/strong>Malware<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one downloads illegitimate files, they have to make sure these files do no harm. The most emerging threats are the encryptors that chase a company\u2019s data, money, or even personal information of its owners. To support this, it\u2019s worth to mention that more than\u00a0a quarter of small and medium-sized businesses<\/a>\u00a0opt for pirated, or unlicensed software to cut costs. Such software may include some malicious or unwanted files that may exploit corporate computers and networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, business owners must be aware of\u00a0access brokers as such layers of groups will cause SMBs harm in a variety of ways in 2023. Their illegal-access customers include cryptojacking clients, banking password stealers, ransomware, cookie stealers, and other problematic malware.\u00a0One of the examples is Emotet,\u00a0malware that steals banking credentials<\/a>\u00a0and targets organizations around the world. Another group that targets small and medium-size businesses is\u00a0DeathStalker<\/a>, best known for its attacks on\u00a0legal, financial and travel entities. The group\u2019s\u00a0main goals rely on looting confidential information regarding legal disputes involving VIPs and large financial assets, competitive business intelligence as well as insights into mergers and acquisitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. <\/strong>Social engineering<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many companies have moved much of their workflows online and learned to use new collaboration tools. In particular, Microsoft\u2019s Office 365 suite has seen a lot more use \u2014 and, to no one\u2019s surprise, phishing now increasingly targets those user accounts. Scammers have been resorting to all sorts of tricks to get business users to enter their passwords on a website made to look like Microsoft\u2019s sign-in page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaspersky has uncovered many new ways how phishing scammers are trying to fool business owners, which sometimes turn out to be quite elaborative. Some are mimicking loan or delivery services \u2013 by sharing false website or sending emails with fake accounting documents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some attackers masquerade as legitimate online platforms to get profit out of their victims: it may be even quite popular\u00a0money transfer services<\/a>, such as Wise Transfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another red flag discovered by Kaspersky experts is a link to a page translated using Google Translate. Attackers use\u00a0Google Translate to bypass cybersecurity mechanisms<\/a>. The senders of the email allege that the attachment is some kind of payment document available exclusively to the recipient, which must be studied for a \u201ccontract meeting presentation and subsequent payments.\u201d The Open button link points to a site translated by Google Translate. However, the link leads to a fake site launched by attackers to steal money from their victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cybercriminals will try to reach out to their victims using every way possible \u2013 through unlicensed software, phishing websites or emails, breaches in the business\u2019s security network or even via massive DDoS attacks. However, a recent survey by Kaspersky showed that 41% of SMBs\u00a0have a crisis prevention plan<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 thus, do care about cybersecurity and understand how challenging IT security incident remediation can be is a good tendency that hopefully will result in reliable protective measures implemented within these organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To protect businesses from cyberattacks, Kaspersky recommends the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n