Why Do 60% of SMBs Fail After a Cyberattack — And How Can You Avoid It?
Small and mid-sized businesses are disproportionately targeted by cybercriminals. Here's why so many don't survive — and what the survivors did differently.
MSInfo Security Team · February 22, 2025 · 5 min read
The statistic is alarming but well-documented: approximately 60% of small and medium-sized businesses that suffer a significant cyberattack close within six months. Yet despite this, SMBs consistently underinvest in cybersecurity, operating under the dangerous assumption that they are too small to be targeted.
The reality is the opposite. Cybercriminals actively target SMBs precisely because they have weaker defenses, less experienced security staff, and fewer resources to respond effectively to an attack. They are also frequently used as entry points to attack the larger enterprises they supply or partner with — a tactic known as a supply chain attack.
So why do so many SMBs fail after an attack? The primary reason is financial. A serious breach — including forensic investigation, legal liability, regulatory fines, customer notification, system restoration, and reputational damage — can easily cost between ₹50 lakh and ₹5 crore. For an SMB without cyber insurance and without a tested recovery plan, this is often unsurvivable.
The second reason is operational paralysis. Without a working incident response plan, teams freeze. They don't know who to call, what to contain, or how to communicate with customers and regulators. Every hour of downtime compounds the damage.
What do the survivors do differently? They treat cybersecurity as a business function, not an IT cost. They invest in basic but critical controls: multi-factor authentication, regular patching, employee security training, and endpoint protection. They also test their defenses — even simple phishing simulations dramatically reduce the risk of a successful social engineering attack.
MSInfo Services works specifically with growing enterprises and mid-sized organizations to build cost-effective, outcome-driven security programs. Our Proof of Value model means you only pay for the security improvements you can measure — making enterprise-grade protection accessible without enterprise-grade budgets.