Small businesses need to be hyper-vigilant when it comes to their security. Without a full tech team in the back office working round-the-clock to keep the company’s best interests safe, they are constantly vulnerable in a way that bigger businesses aren’t. Unfortunately, this creates a vicious cycle in which the most vulnerable businesses are targeted more, simply because they are more vulnerable.
Here are the mistakes you might be making.
Falling for Sophisticated Phishing Attempts
AI is transforming the phishing industry into something that could fool any of us, no matter how internet-savvy we are. Gone are the days of lackluster and misguided phishing attempts where your ‘boss’ would contact you via a totally different email address asking you to buy gift cards for some convoluted reason, or a prince from some distant country would end up in your spam inbox asking you to transfer $1,000 so he can access his jewels.
AI is getting incredibly good at impersonating people we think we know, even going so far as to impersonate their voices and cadences with alarming accuracy. This practice is known as vishing, and offers a startling look at how quickly and how effectively AI can mimic any of us. For criminals utilizing AI tools, impersonating a supplier sending over a routine invoice or a client requesting a legitimate-sounding refund is incredibly simple now.
One of the best ways to make sure a sender is who they claim they are is paying attention to the email address itself, and not simply the name that pops up alongside it. A closer level of scrutiny than ever before is needed, even when things feel totally routine.
Not Using an Encrypted Service
Encryption ensures that no one who inserts themselves between a sender and a recipient can read what is being said. It’s a vital element for any business or individual today, but so many services and platforms remain unencrypted, creating a major security flaw straight off the bat.
Hackers trying to intercept data via compromised WiFi connections or even email providers intercepting messages and storing the data contained within them represent real threats to business security in 2026 – and long into the future. A professional email service designed to offer genuine privacy and robust security is the only way to feel sure that your day-to-day communications with your team aren’t being read by someone (or something) else.
Still Relying on Single-Factor Authentication
Single-factor authentication is the path of least resistance, and those of us who were around in the earlier days of the internet certainly have a fondness for needing nothing more than a password to get into an account. And, when your password is more complex than something like ‘[Pet Name]123’ or ‘P433w0rd’, it’s certainly tempting to assume that no one is ever going to attempt to hack your account – let alone succeed.
But whatever your argument in favor of 1FA – be it your obscurity, the lack of interest you think you pose to hackers, or how many special characters you included in your password – that doesn’t erase the fact that it’s simply not sufficient for modern-day account security.
Not only is AI getting better (and faster) at guessing passwords, it’s also being deployed to carry out credential stuffing attacks en masse, which means trying login credentials that have been leaked in breaches across many different platforms and login pages across the web.
Even if you manage to dodge credential stuffing (which is increasingly unlikely these days), the fact remains that relying on single-factor authentication is like relying on the chain to keep your door secure when you could simply deadlock it, too.
