Your Small Business is a BIG Target... for Botnets

Small businesses can no longer fly under the radar of cybercriminals. In fact, they are being specifically targeted because they are less protected (and more vulnerable) than large businesses.

Why? Because it's easy. How? Because of tiny infections called "botnets."

A new report observed “massive spikes” in botnet activity, with over a million devices involved in malicious activities at one point. To put that into perspective, that’s a hundred times the usual levels of botnet activity.

So wait... what on earth is a botnet??

It's kind of like a wiretap, but worse. It can already be buried in your computer and be virtually undetectable by virus or malware scanners.

It does this by laying dormant on your system, only activating when it needs to or when no one is using the computer. Some botnets silently report to a cybercriminal about passwords, cookies, sensitive data, etc. Again, all while remaining invisible.

It doesn't matter if you change your passwords... if a botnet is living on your computer, then they see the new password too.

There's an entire black market on the dark web dedicated to selling botnets that are actively living on someone's computer. Last I checked, there were over 450,000 active botnets for sale. I'm for real. Message me, and I'll show you a screenshot.

Botnets have other functions too. A DDoS attack is hundreds or thousands of botnets laying dormant, suddenly all activating at the same time to overwhelm a single website to the point where it crashes.

Even your smart refrigerator could be prone to a botnet. Yes, even your fridge can be turned into a cyber weapon. There are measures we take to protect your main network against this.

Most botnets are out just scanning businesses. Looking for vulnerabilities in networks of ANY small business. If you send email, visit business websites, etc... you are automatically a target. Don't believe me? I can open the logs of your router and find active botnets trying to break in multiple times a minute.

Usually, there are approximately 10,000 of these types of botnets doing fishy attacks every day, with 20,000 being the highest that's been detected. Just this past December, things got wild with just over 35K... and two weeks later, it climbed to over 43K. That's... a.... lot!!

It didn't stop there. Recently, the numbers hit a crazy 143K... to repeat, that is 143,957 botnets across the same number of devices. And a little later (I'm talking January), there were over a million devices. Yikes!

Think of the internet as your house... cyber criminals are like roaches, ants, or any kind of pest trying to find any way to enter your home. They focus on very specific "ports" of entry to get in. When was the last time you called pest control?

So ok... what can you do to protect yourself from these cyber threats?

It’s all about strengthening those "ports" of entry. Here are a few simple steps:

• Keep everything up to date. I mean software, operating systems, and any programs. Regular updates often fix open holes in your network.
• Install a good router/firewall with a reliable antivirus to protect your devices. It's not perfect, but it's a good measure to start with.
• Educate your staff about cyber security best practices, such as avoiding suspicious links, attachments and emails.
• Make sure you have strong and DIFFERENT passwords for all of your stuff, including websites and devices.
• Multifactor/Two-Factor authentication... you know that code you have to type in that is texted to you. That! This helps considerably.
• Back up, back up, back up to prevent loss in case of a cyber attack.
• If you know how, try to keep an eye on your network for any unusual activity. We have humans in place watching all of our client's networks 24/7 for an irregular network heartbeat.
• On that note, mayyyyybe consider hiring a cyber security expert (that’s us) to assess and enhance your security measures.

This isn't an attempt to scare you. There's enough of that on the internet. If you can follow some of the above best practices, you will help reduce the odds. Of course, if we can help in any way, please let us know.

Originally published at geek3.com on February 13, 2024.