Introduction
While the goal of IT security is to prevent cyberattacks, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need to be prepared to recover quickly if a breach is successful. Rapid recovery lessens the economic and reputational impact of a breach. Resilient companies can recover from a security incident in hours instead of weeks or months — and that difference can mean the survival or collapse of a business.
SMBs are particularly vulnerable to ransomware attacks because they often can't afford either the ransom or the prolonged downtime required to fix the problem themselves. A single attack involving a data breach, malware, ransomware, or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack can cost businesses with 50 to 249 employees an average of $184,000. Many of these targeted organizations go out of business within six months, making resiliency not just a technical concern, but a matter of long-term viability.
That's why SMBs need to increase their resiliency with a backup and recovery strategy that is reliable and can meet tight recovery point objectives (RPO) and recovery time objectives (RTO). By investing in the right data protection solutions, smaller businesses can ensure they bounce back swiftly and maintain the trust of their customers, partners, and stakeholders — no matter what threats come their way.
SMBs may make the mistake of assuming that cybercriminals have bigger fish to fry. The truth is that hackers actively target SMBs with ransomware and other attacks, knowing that smaller companies often lack the resources, dedicated security teams, and infrastructure needed to recover their systems quickly. This makes SMBs low-hanging fruit for threat actors looking for easy payouts.
Hackers sometimes lowball the ransom, figuring that a smaller business will pay up instead of spending the time and money needed to fix the problem themselves. This calculated approach means that even a modest ransom demand can be devastating to a company with limited cash flow, and the cumulative effect of downtime, lost productivity, and reputational damage can far exceed the ransom itself.
A single attack involving a data breach, malware, ransomware, or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack can cost businesses with 50 to 249 employees an average of $184,000. Many of these targeted organizations go out of business within six months. Resiliency solutions enable SMBs to recover from an attack by ensuring that data is backed up and stored in a location where it cannot be encrypted or compromised by malware — giving your business the safety net it needs to survive and thrive in an increasingly hostile digital landscape.
What Is Resiliency and How Backup and Disaster Recovery Support It
Data protection solutions promote resiliency by ensuring business continuity after an attack. Business continuity and availability are critically important for SMBs because they are markers of reliability and trustworthiness. Customers want to know that your small business is available to them whenever and wherever they need you — and even a brief period of downtime can erode the confidence you've worked hard to build.
As the term resiliency suggests, data protection allows your company to bounce back after a traumatic incident by recovering lost data and restoring compromised data to its original state. Recovering from a cybersecurity attack requires that your company restore critical assets, such as mission-critical data. Not only should your SMB have a reliable backup in place, but you must have a comprehensive and tested disaster recovery plan that your team can execute confidently under pressure.
Smaller companies can start by creating a backup and recovery plan according to the basic 3-2-1 backup rule. The 3-2-1 rule involves:
- Creating three backups of your critical data — one primary and two copies
- Having two different backup locations — disk, tape, cloud, etc.
- Using one location that is geographically separated from your production data
Cloud-based backup and disaster recovery help you follow the 3-2-1 rule and meet RTO and RPO targets. With cloud backup and recovery and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), SMBs can achieve instant failover and synchronize backups to restore data to its current state — minimizing data loss and ensuring your operations resume with minimal disruption.
Taking a proactive approach to cybersecurity is ideal, but not every attack can be prevented. When a cyberattack does occur, having data protection solutions in place to support resiliency will keep your company up and running. The difference between a minor disruption and a catastrophic failure often comes down to how well-prepared your backup and recovery infrastructure truly is.
Derive Technologies can help your SMB become more resilient. We provide backup and recovery as part of our managed services and offer periodic testing for restoration services to ensure that your company can stay available no matter what. Our team works closely with SMBs to design, implement, and maintain tailored data protection strategies that align with your unique business requirements and budget constraints.
As a Cisco Premier Certified Partner, Derive Technologies also has the certified expertise needed to support your data protection and resiliency solutions end to end. From initial assessments and architecture design to ongoing monitoring and incident response, we bring decades of experience in helping businesses across healthcare, financial services, SLED, and the commercial SMB space fortify their operations against the unexpected. With Derive by your side, you gain a trusted partner committed to keeping your business resilient in the face of evolving cyber threats.
The Takeaway for IT Buyers
In today's threat landscape, no SMB can afford to operate without a robust resiliency strategy. Cyberattacks are not a matter of "if" but "when," and the businesses that survive are the ones that have invested in reliable backup, disaster recovery, and data protection solutions. From following the 3-2-1 backup rule to leveraging cloud-based DRaaS, there are proven steps every SMB can take to dramatically reduce downtime and data loss.
Resiliency is more than just a technical safeguard — it's a commitment to your customers, your employees, and your company's future. By ensuring business continuity and rapid recovery, you demonstrate the reliability and trustworthiness that set your SMB apart in a competitive market. The cost of preparation is always far less than the cost of recovery after an unplanned disaster.
Don't wait for a breach to expose gaps in your defenses. Derive Technologies is ready to help your SMB build the resilient foundation it needs to weather any storm. Learn more about increasing resiliency at your organization — request a free security assessment from Derive Technologies today and take the first step toward a more secure, more resilient future.