Small business beware: you're top fraud target
March might be Fraud Prevention Month but new survey results reveal that many Canadian small business owners believe they are too small to attract the attention of fraudsters.
The survey of 885 small business owners between February 2nd and 9th found that 41 per cent of respondents believe that ‘data thieves and hackers’ are not interested in targeting their businesses because of their size. The survey was conducted by Ipsos Reid on behalf of Visa Canada.
Experts warn, however, that this sentiment is misguided, as small businesses are all too frequently the target of fraudsters seeking confidential company information, credit card numbers and customer data. In fact, with SMBs making up close to 90 per cent of all businesses in Canada, the majority of security breaches actually occur at small business level. Criminals have realized that larger organizations have the resources to adequately protect themselves from data breaches and theft, so many have moved their attention to smaller independently owned shops.
