Accessibility statement [Accesskey '0'] Go to Accessibility statement
Skip to Content [Accesskey 'S'] Skip to main content
Skip to site Navigation [Accesskey 'N'] Go to Navigation
Go to Home page [Accesskey '1'] Go to Home page
Go to Sitemap [Accesskey '2'] Go to Sitemap

Personal
Business
Private Banking
International Banking

Lloyds Bank Logo
Lloyds Bank Logo

Help and support

Supporting your banking needs
- Popular help queries
- More support
Online banking

Our online services
- View all online banking
- New customers
- Other online services
- Existing customers
- Find out more
  - Other ways to bank
  - What’s new in Online for Business
- Mobile app existing customers
Accounts and savings

Everyday banking and payments
- Business accounts
- Savings
- Business account holders
- Savings Strategy Tool
Borrowing

Loans, cards and finance
- Business loans
- Overdrafts
- Cards
- Invoice Finance customers
- Business cards
  
  Work out how much cashback you could earn.
  
  Cashback calculator
Take payments

Card readers and online
- Cardnet existing customers
- Card readers
  
  Accept card payments with our wide range of face-to-face solutions.
  
  View our card readers
International trade

Business at home and abroad
- International & domestic trade
- Importing
- Exporting
- International cash management
- Existing trade customers
Insurance

Find the right cover
- Business Insurance
- Public Liability Insurance
  
  Help protect your business from legal fees and compensation costs if a customer, client or other third party makes a claim against you.
  
  Get a quote
Business guidance

Start-up, manage and grow
- Business sectors
- Insights and resources
- Good things are happening in British business
  
  Find out how some of our customers have evolved their businesses in innovative ways.
  
  Take a closer look
Corporate solutions

For corporates & institutions
- View all corporate solutions
- Corporate sectors
- Banking with us
  - Contact us
  - Product terms & conditions
- Online services
- Corporate insights
- Insights for corporates and institutions
  
  Find the latest insights, reports, expert commentary, client case studies, and economic and markets updates.
  
  Explore the latest content

Sustainable business
Business sectors

- Search Close
- Log on
  
  Internet Banking
  
  Personal
  
  Business
  
  Register
  
  Keep me secure

Home
...
Resource Centre
Business Guides
Importance of cybersecurity

The importance of cybersecurity for your small business or organisation

Read time: 6 mins Added date: 28/05/2024

Small businesses are big business for cyber criminals. According to the latest Government statistics, 58% of UK small businesses surveyed have suffered a cyber breach or attack in the past 12 months¹. Find out what makes your business or organisation vulnerable and how to protect it from cyber threats.

In collaboration with Norton

This article is developed in collaboration with Norton – one of the leading cyber safety providers, offering antivirus and device security plans.

Cybersecurity basics

The aim of cyber criminals is to gain unauthorised access to your business’s devices, networks, and programs, and use that access to steal sensitive information and extort money. Cyber criminals could steal your customers’ data, pretend to be you, and defraud your customers into paying them. The consequences of cyber attacks can have a significant impact on a business, including reputational damage to the brand and financial loss.

Cybersecurity is all about protecting those same devices, networks and programs, and the data they hold. Whatever the size of your business or the number of devices you have, cybersecurity is something you can’t ignore.

Could your business or organisation be at risk of a cyber attack?

The cybersecurity breaches we tend to hear about are the big ones: when a large business’s customer data has been compromised, or its normal operations have been seriously disrupted. These attacks make the news, but rarely – if ever – destroy the business.

The cyber attacks we don’t hear about are the ones that affect small businesses. Yet they often have more devastating effects than the headline-grabbing stories. In fact, in the UK alone, 60% of small organisations go out of business within six months of a cyber attack².

Cyber criminals are well aware that few, if any, small businesses will have an employee dedicated to overseeing cybersecurity, or who is a cybersecurity expert. They know that in a small business, there’s less of a budget for enterprise-grade security technology, and that IT practices may be less strict and less secure. And that means the criminals have more opportunities to gain unauthorised access.

Targeting a small business won’t provide them with such large returns as attacking a large one. But the likelihood of success is much greater, and the opportunities more numerous – simply because there are so many small businesses (90% of businesses worldwide are classed as ‘small’). So those smaller returns quickly add up, with very little risk involved.

The good news is that effective cybersecurity for a small business doesn’t have to be a big challenge. With the right combination of tools, technologies, and practices, just a few small steps can secure your business and deter the criminals.

Where does it all go wrong?

You couldn’t operate your business without digital technology. Even if it’s just one PC, you would be lost without it. And the more technology you use, the more you come to rely on it – and the more vulnerable you are to cyber risks and threats.

Those risks range from ransomware and phishing to social engineering attacks – you can discover what these and other cybersecurity terms mean in our cyber glossary. It’s not just criminals who are threatening your business – the way your business operates and the technologies you use can also present cybersecurity vulnerabilities. It’s important to consider the following in terms of how your business operates:

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy

Do you or your employees ever work on their personal devices – smartphones, tablets, or laptops – at home or in the office? If they do, it can seriously compromise your business’s security.

Personal devices are often used in insecure locations on insecure networks (in coffee shops or airports, for example). So, they are far more vulnerable to being hacked than business-only devices used on the business’s secure network. Also, when personal devices are used for non-business purposes, such as gaming, it is easy for an employee to unwittingly download malware. This then has access to attack the rest of your business network.

Working from home

Working from home and remote working are now part of everyday working life. But even though most small businesses are well used to the idea, their cybersecurity – and employees’ awareness of the risks – may not have caught up. So working away from the office can make even dedicated business devices more vulnerable to cyber threats.

For example, used at home, those devices may be shared with non-authorised people, such as family members who may access less than safe websites, introducing ransomware or viruses onto the machine. Legitimate business information and data may be accessed through unsafe networks – such as public wi-fi. And dangerous emails received out of the office may avoid spam filters or be opened inadvertently – compromising sensitive business information and exposing your business to risk.

Cloud applications

The cloud has been one of the biggest recent developments in business IT. However, it brings risks along with its rewards.

Although information stored in the cloud is generally secure, if attackers get hold of stolen credentials they can gain access and exploit the information however they want. Alternatively, they may gain access through insecure Application Programming Interfaces (where programs or devices are communicating with each other). The more sophisticated cyber criminals specifically target cloud environments and use public cloud services to operate cyber attacks.

And using the cloud may lull a business into a false sense of security that there is no need to back-up data. Yet if the data is permanently lost, it can be catastrophic.

What steps can you take to protect your business or organisation?

There are several relatively easy and inexpensive things you can do to address the vulnerabilities. Together, they could save your business.

Antivirus

Installing and monitoring antivirus on all devices to secure every point of entry.

Regular vulnerability scans

Regular scans ensure that antivirus, passwords, and any other software are up to date.

Email encryption

End-to-end encryption directly on user devices ensures information only ends up in the right hands.

Secure authentication

There are several ways to achieve this, but password policies and multi-factor authentication are some first steps.

Secure employees anytime, anywhere

Provide a VPN connection to remote workers to secure access to organisations data and applications.

Security awareness and training

Educate employees on practices that protect themselves and your organisation, such as recognising scams and creating strong passwords.

Enforceable processes and policies

Make sure everyone knows how to keep the business safe. Establish clear direction regarding what data needs protecting and how.

Backup and disaster recovery

It prevents you from losing sensitive and valuable data in case of accident or emergency.

As a minimum requirement, your business needs an antivirus, online and offline back-ups and network monitoring. Fortunately, your small business has the advantage of being able to act quickly to get cybersecurity in place. With specialised cybersecurity protection products, such as Norton Small Business, you can get comprehensive cybersecurity protection for your business' devices and the passwords, customer data, and financial information you store on them.

Cyber security breaches survey 2024 - GOV.UK
UK small businesses hit hardest by cyber attacks - Made in Britain

Norton Small Business can help protect you

Through our collaboration with Norton, you can benefit from a 60-day free trial and get special discounts on Norton Small Business plans.

Important Legal Information

Calls may be monitored or recorded in case we need to check we have carried out your instructions correctly and to help improve our quality of service.

Lloyds and Lloyds Bank are trading names of Lloyds Bank plc, Bank of Scotland plc, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc and Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH.

The products and services outlined on this site may be offered by legal entities from across Lloyds Banking Group, including Lloyds Bank plc and Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc. Lloyds Bank plc and Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc are separate legal entities within the Lloyds Banking Group.

Lloyds Bank plc. Registered Office: 25 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HN. Registered in England and Wales no. 2065. Bank of Scotland plc. Registered Office: The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ. Registered in Scotland no. SC327000. Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc. Registered office 25 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7HN. Registered in England and Wales no. 10399850. Authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority under registration number 119278, 169628 and 763256 respectively.

Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc. Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH has its registered office at Thurn-und-Taxis Platz 6, 60313 Frankfurt, Germany. The company is registered with the Amtsgericht Frankfurt am Main, HRB 111650. Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH is supervised by the Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht.

Eligible deposits with us are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). We are covered by the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Please note that due to FSCS and FOS eligibility criteria not all business customers will be covered.

Existing customers

Help and support
Contact us

Banking with us

Find a branch
Terms and conditions
Rates and Charges
Legal and regulatory

About us

About Lloyds Bank
Lloyds Banking Group
Communities
Careers

Security Legal Privacy Cookies Accessibility Sitemap Modern Slavery Statement (PDF, 2.5 MB) Opens in a new tab

Visit the Lloyds Bank Twitter page (opens in new tab)

Visit Lloyds Bank Facebook page (opens in new tab)

Visit Lloyds Bank Instagram page (opens in new tab)

Visit Lloyds Bank Linkedin page (opens in new tab)

Visit the Lloyds Bank YouTube channel (opens in new tab)

Help and support

Popular help queries

More support

Online banking

New customers

Other online services

Existing customers

Find out more

Mobile app existing customers

Accounts and savings

Find out more

Business account holders

Borrowing

Find out more

Invoice Finance customers

Business cards

Take payments

Existing customers

Card readers

International trade

Existing customers

Existing trade customers

Insurance

Find out more

Public Liability Insurance

Business guidance

Useful resources

Good things are happening in British business

Corporate solutions

Useful resources

Insights for corporates and institutions

The importance of cybersecurity for your small business or organisation

In collaboration with Norton

Jump to:

Jump to:

Cybersecurity basics

Could your business or organisation be at risk of a cyber attack?

Where does it all go wrong?

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy

Working from home

Cloud applications

What steps can you take to protect your business or organisation?

Antivirus

Regular vulnerability scans

Email encryption

Secure authentication

Secure employees anytime, anywhere

Security awareness and training

Enforceable processes and policies

Backup and disaster recovery

Norton Small Business can help protect you

Important Legal Information

Existing customers expandable section Existing customers

Banking with us expandable section Banking with us

About us expandable section About us

Existing customers

Banking with us

About us