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    Cybersecurity for Small Businesses and Nonprofits
    Cybersecurity for Small Businesses and Nonprofits
    Cybersecurity for Small Businesses and Nonprofits
    Ebook73 pages43 minutes

    Cybersecurity for Small Businesses and Nonprofits

    By Jane LeClair, Denise Pheils and Carolyn Schrader

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    About this ebook

    Provides suggestions business owners can utilize to protect their livelihoods from cyber criminals.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateJul 8, 2016
    ISBN9781944079109
    Cybersecurity for Small Businesses and Nonprofits

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      Book preview

      Cybersecurity for Small Businesses and Nonprofits - Jane LeClair

      Cybersecurity for

      Small Businesses and Nonprofits

      Copyright © 2016 by Excelsior College

      Published by arrangement with

      Excelsior College’s National Cybersecurity Institute (NCI)

      All rights reserved.

      The information provided within this book is for general, educational, and informational purposes only. There are no representations or warranties, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability with respect to the information, products, or services, for any purpose. Mention of specific products is for purposes of illustration. The authors have no affiliations with or vested interests in any named products. Any use or application of information is at your own risk.

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Hudson Whitman/ Excelsior College Press

      7 Columbia Circle

      Albany, NY 12203

      www.hudsonwhitman.com

      Printed in the United States of America

      Book design by Sue Morreale

      Cover design by Philip E. Pascuzzo

      ISBN 978-1-944079-90-1

      eISBN 978-1-944079-10-9

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Chapter 1 Cybersecurity Threats

      Chapter 2 Unique Cybersecurity Issues Impacting Small Businesses

      Chapter 3 Cybersecurity Laws and Policies

      Chapter 4 Workforce Skills

      Chapter 5 Best Practices

      Chapter 6 Future Trends

      Chapter 7 Cyber Tools for Small Business

      Glossary

      Sources of Further Information

      References

      About the Authors

      Acknowledgments

      This book on cybersecurity for small businesses and nonprofits was a pleasure to write, but a book of any sort is never written alone, and that is certainly true of this one. The authors wish to thank everyone who contributed their time and efforts bringing this work to fruition. Without their guidance, assistance, and never ending patience, it would never have happened. Thank you.

      Chapter 1

      Cybersecurity Threats

      Cybersecurity threats continue to expand, with hackers targeting small businesses and nonprofit organizations as well as large corporations. Cybercriminals want financial information, customer information and business secrets. Sales of stolen digital data are estimated to be a multibillion dollar market—equal to if not greater than the illegal drug market (Schmid, 2015).

      What Hackers Are Doing

      Regardless of the type of business or organization, key threats from hackers include:

      Ransomware

      Ransomware is a general name for malware that is designed to lock data files via encryption and demand payment to receive a key to unlock the files. Common versions of ransomware include CryptoLocker and CryptoWall. Police ransomware is a variation that tells the victim a law enforcement agency, such as the FBI, caught the victim performing an illegal act on the Internet and demands payment (Zetter, 2015).

      Cyber Economic Espionage

      The FBI is highly concerned about the increase in cyber economic espionage (Bruer, 2015; FBI, 2015). Nation-states and possibly individual criminal hackers or organized gangs increasingly target businesses to steal company secrets (Goodman, 2015; Zetter, 2015). They penetrate a business’s network and steal blueprints, sales strategies, merger plans, product designs, patents, and formulas. The stolen information is used for gain in another company to improve the other company’s competitive advantages.

      Sophisticated Malware

      Hackers continue to make their malware more sophisticated. They target specific audiences to improve their odds of success. The attacks are more secretive, with hidden coding and paths of entry.

      The criminals are endlessly releasing new mutations and variants of malware. As of June 2015, approximately 40,000 new malware variants were identified (McAfee Labs, 2015).

      Website Malware

      Businesses are susceptible to malware attacks on their public websites. The intent is often to use the website as a distribution point

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