Interestingly, 50% of business owners believe that cybersecurity attacks are reserved for multibillion-dollar and Fortune-500 companies. However, this perception is wrong, as more than 85% of managed service providers reported dealing with ransomware attacks against small and medium businesses.
Among the highly targeted SMBs include businesses in the healthcare industry, education, and finance, primarily accounting firms. While digital tools might have helped these sectors increase efficiency and productivity, it has exposed them to cyber threats. Accounting firms should prioritize accounting cyber security for the following reasons;
1. Financial Loss
More than 43% of small businesses pay between $10,000 and $50,000 to hackers. Cybercriminals focus on extorting money from vulnerable companies. Sadly, most small businesses are prone to attacks and readily agree to their demands. Businesses can lose financially to malicious actors in many ways. Apart from paying a ransom, data breaches can lead to expensive court cases.
2. Legal Repercussions
More than 64% of consumers prefer ending their relationships with companies if their sensitive information, especially financial data, is stolen. As if not enough, 94% of this population would take or consider taking legal actions against the affected companies.
3. Damaged Reputation
In the current digital environment, negative news spreads like wildfire. While building a solid reputation for your accounting firm may take years, it will only take seconds to destroy a good reputation. Sadly, cyberattacks can expose your business negatively to your customers and potential clients.
4. Loss of sensitive data to insiders
Unfortunately, more cybersecurity threats have been promoted by malicious insiders. Anybody in your organization can be a threat. It is common for malicious employees to grant outsiders or competitor companies access to sensitive information for their personal benefits. Accounting firms should adopt strong and reliable cybersecurity efforts.
How Can Accounting Businesses Mitigate Cyberattacks?
The best approach to mitigate cyber threats is designing strategic approaches that view cybersecurity as a general company problem instead of a simple tech issue. Accounting firms should hire professional cybersecurity services to evaluate their data security level and test for possible vulnerabilities. Below are other proven measures that accounting firms can leverage to mitigate cyberattacks:
Look beyond firewall
Unlike before, current antivirus software and firewalls might not provide adequate protection due to the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks. Therefore, accounting firms should look beyond the firewalls by implementing other measures, such as conducting regular vulnerability scans, penetration testing, and providing cybersecurity training and awareness to their employees.
Assess and seal network vulnerabilities
Hackers often try attacking the least secure networks to exploit vulnerabilities. Malicious persons use these vulnerabilities as a stepping stone to access sensitive systems, including your servers and tax software. Working with a cybersecurity expert can help accounting firms avert the likelihood of these breaches.
Modernizing cybersecurity for CPAs
Accounting firms should shift their focus from basic preventive practices to comprehensive strategies to create a foolproof system. This includes real-time vulnerability management, independent cybersecurity audits, penetration testing, and awareness training.
Endnote
Accounting businesses should implement threat mitigation practices that go beyond installing a firewall and antivirus software. Other best practices include backing up business data, regular system updates, shifting to the cloud, encrypting files, using strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, and more.
