Cyber warfare occurs when one nation or organisation attacks another’s computer systems. When this kind of attack occurs, it is typically perpetrated with the goal of disrupting, destabilising, damaging, or destroying the other nation or organisation’s infrastructure.

There are many different techniques that may be used as part of cyber warfare, including:

• Espionage (where the attacking nation or organisation spies on the other’s computer to uncover sensitive information)
• Sabotage (where attacks are made by the attacking nation or organisation in an attempt to disrupt the normal functioning of the other’s infrastructure)
• Denial of service (where the attacking nation or organisation floods the other’s systems with high volumes of requests, which can then cause their system to shut down or become inaccessible by legitimate users)
• Propaganda (where the attacking nation or organisation uses technology to disseminate propaganda, with the goal of influencing the views of people in the country or organisation they are targeting)
• Economic disruption (where the attacking nation or organisation gain access to economic technologies like banks, payment gateways, and stock markets, and either steal money or prevent their target from being able to access money)
• Surprise cyberattacks (where the attacking nation or organisation commits a cyber attack against the target country or organisation, with the intention of weakening their defences against future physical or cyber attacks)

Cyberwarfare typically targets larger organisations in the financial, military, security, safety, and public infrastructure sectors. However, that’s not to say that small business owners should not also be safeguarding themselves against cyber threats and cyber attacks.

This is particularly true when you consider that the Australian Cyber Safety Commission receives a report of cyber attacks every ten minutes, which equates to around 144 cybercrime reports daily.

Cybercrime also causes around $300 million in losses annually, along with significant data loss for both small and large businesses.

Even more scarily, in a survey of small to medium business owners conducted by the Australian Cyber Safety Commission, 62% of the business owners surveyed reported that they had experienced a cyber attack or cyber crime incident.

As you can see, as a small business owner, you can’t afford to not be protecting yourself and your business against cyberattacks. Fortunately, there are a lot of things you can do to safeguard your business, computers, and mobile devices against cyberattacks. For example, you can:

• Ensure that you and your team are well-educated about the risks, dangers, and pitfalls of the digital world
• Ensure that you have a good internet and cyber security strategy in place
• Engage a cyber security expert to undertake regular audits of your current security infrastructure to ensure it complies with current best practice and industry standards, identify any shortcomings, and make recommendations for improvement
• Consult with cyber security experts to ensure your cyber security strategy is optimised to offer you the best possible level of protection
• Maintain a regular backup schedule, to ensure your data is safe, secure, and recoverable in the event of a cybersecurity breach
• Take our insurance to ensure you are covered if your servers fail, you miss a regular scheduled backup, or you fall victim to viruses, ransomware, or cyberattacks

At Tomedia, we’re experienced in small business cyber security. Find out more about the cyber security services we offer here.