Security

4 Ways Small Businesses Can Be Cyber Resilient This Year

As cyberattacks grow more aggressive, small businesses can take practical, scalable steps to strengthen defenses at any stage of the zero-trust journey.

BizTech Staff

Cyber resilience is no longer just an enterprise concern. As cybercriminals increasingly target organizations with fewer than 500 employees, small businesses must rethink how they protect users, devices and data — often without the luxury of large security teams or budgets.

“Conventional castle-and-moat cybersecurity models, which rely on secure network perimeters and virtual private network–based employee and third-party remote access, are proving to be no match for evolving cyberthreats,” notes a recent Deloitte report. This is why a zero-trust mindset — “never trust, always verify” — is becoming essential for organizations of every size.

The challenge is that smaller organizations often lag larger enterprises in cyber maturity. In fact, the number of organizations that maintain minimum viable cyber resilience fell 30% in 2024 compared with the previous year, according to the World Economic Forum. For small businesses, that gap can translate into greater operational risk, downtime and financial impact.

Here are four practical ways small businesses can improve cyber resilience and make progress on a zero-trust strategy — even with limited resources.

1. Use Network Segmentation to Limit Risk

Network segmentation divides a business network into smaller, isolated zones — grouping devices and applications based on function or sensitivity. Security tools such as next-generation firewalls inspect traffic between these zones, helping prevent attackers from moving freely if one system is compromised.

For small businesses, segmentation doesn’t have to be complex. Even separating core business systems, such as finance or customer databases, from general user traffic can significantly reduce risk and improve visibility. It also helps ensure that privileged access is limited to only those who truly need it.

Microsegmentation takes this concept further by isolating individual workloads, devices or applications using software-defined networking. While it may sound advanced, many modern security platforms make this achievable for smaller environments, particularly in the cloud.

Microsegmentation “can provide comprehensive cloud infrastructure, advanced threat detection and defense against lateral movement to augment and complement a zero-trust strategy,” writes Tim Liu, CTO and co-founder of Hillstone Networks, in Forbes. This approach helps small businesses limit the blast radius of a potential attack.

30%

The percentage by which the number of organizations achieving cyber resilience fell in 2024 compared with last year

Source: weforum.org, “Widening Disparities and Growing Threats Cloud Global Cybersecurity Outlook for 2024,” Jan. 11, 2024

2. Enforce Least Privilege with Centralized Access Control

The principle of least privilege ensures employees, applications and systems have only the access required to perform their roles — and no more. For small businesses, this is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce cyber risk.

Dynamic access control builds on this concept by adjusting privileges based on predefined roles, device health or user behavior. Combined with regular access reviews, PoLP helps small IT teams reduce exposure while managing identities more efficiently.

Least privilege also complements foundational security practices such as patching and endpoint protection. With fewer unnecessary permissions in place, attackers have fewer opportunities to escalate access if credentials are compromised.

EXPLORE: Learn about threat and vulnerability management solutions.

Centralizing access control decisions and monitoring devices for anomalies allows small businesses to enforce consistent security policies without overwhelming internal teams.

3. Simplify Data Classification and Governance

Not all data needs the same level of protection. Small businesses can improve cyber resilience by identifying which data is most sensitive — such as financial records, intellectual property or customer information — and prioritizing security controls accordingly.

Data classification doesn’t need to be an all-at-once initiative. Organizations can start by classifying a few critical data sets and layering stronger protections around them. Over time, this creates greater visibility into where sensitive data lives and who should have access to it.

Once data is classified, governance becomes more straightforward. Security policies can be applied more consistently across endpoints, cloud platforms and collaboration tools, reducing the risk of accidental exposure.

DISCOVER: Get seven steps to effective data classification.

4. Strengthen Oversight During Cloud Transitions

Many small businesses are actively migrating applications and data to the cloud, but these transitions can introduce temporary security gaps if not managed carefully.

Improving regulatory and security oversight during this period is critical. Controls such as encryption, access monitoring and workload isolation help protect sensitive data while systems move between on-premises and cloud environments.

According to Amazon Web Services, security controls can encrypt sensitive data and “protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of resources.” These guardrails help ensure data remains secure throughout the migration process.

By applying these four strategies, small businesses can strengthen cyber resilience, protect critical data and maintain operational continuity — even with limited IT resources.

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