Focuses on practical cybersecurity solutions and strategies designed specifically for small businesses with limited budgets and IT resources. Articles cover affordable security tools, essential policies, employee awareness training, and steps to defend against ransomware, phishing, and data breaches.
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The FTC Just Fined a Company $1.5 Million — Because They Skipped the Basics In 2023, the FTC settled with Chegg for $3.5 million after four separate data breaches exposed tens of millions of customer records. Employees had been sharing login credentials. Sensitive data sat in plain text. Multi-factor
The Breach That Cost a 12-Person Company Everything In 2023, a small accounting firm in Sacramento lost access to every client file it had. A single employee clicked a link in a fake DocuSign email. Within four hours, ransomware had encrypted the entire network. The ransom demand was $250,000.
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — and small businesses absorbed a disproportionate share of that damage. I've worked with companies of 15 employees that lost six figures to a single business email
43% of Cyberattacks Target Small Businesses — Most Aren't Ready That number comes straight from the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, and it's been climbing for years. In my experience working with organizations of every size, small businesses consistently overestimate their security posture and underestimate their exposure.
The FTC Just Fined Another Company Millions — Is Yours Next? I was just reading in 2023 the FTC finalized sweeping updates to its Safeguards Rule, and since then, enforcement has only accelerated. Companies like Chegg, CafePress, and Drizly didn't just face fines — their executives were personally named in
The Breach That Cost a 12-Person Company $1.2 Million In early 2024, a small accounting firm in the Midwest lost $1.2 million after an employee clicked a phishing link disguised as a DocuSign notification. The attacker harvested credentials, bypassed the firm's basic email filters, and initiated
In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center received over 880,000 complaints with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion — a nearly 22% increase in losses over the previous year. A staggering share of those complaints came from small and midsize businesses. I've spent years helping
In 2023, a single employee at a 12-person accounting firm in Nevada clicked a link in what looked like a DocuSign email. Within four hours, every client file on the network was encrypted. The ransom demand was $250,000. The firm didn't have backups. They paid. That firm
In 2020, a 10-person insurance agency in Oregon lost $285,000 in a single business email compromise attack. The threat actor spoofed the owner's email address, sent a wire transfer request to the bookkeeper, and the money was gone in 47 minutes. No malware. No Hollywood hacking. Just
In December 2021, a 35-person accounting firm in Ohio paid a $150,000 ransom after one employee clicked a link in a fake DocuSign email. The firm had no cybersecurity training program. No phishing simulations. No written security policy. The threat actor was inside their network for eleven days before
