Steps You Should Take

By Patricia Toth

Patricia Toth is a Supervisory Computer Scientist in the Applied Computer Security Division at NIST. Toth has worked numerous documents and projects during her 20+ years at NIST including the Common Criteria Evaluation Program, and the FISMA family of guidance documents including SP 800-53 and SP 800-53A. Pat is The Small Business Outreach Lead and co-author of NISTIR 7621 Small Business Information Security: The Fundamentals.

Large businesses in the United States are putting substantial resources into protecting their information from cybersecurity threats. As a result, they are tougher targets for malicious attacks, so hackers and cyber criminals are now focusing their unwanted attention on smaller, less secure businesses.

Small businesses have money and information of value to criminals but are often less prepared than larger companies to handle cyber threats. They often have more to lose than larger organizations simply because an event – whether a hacker, natural disaster, or business resource loss – can have a devastating impact on the business.

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