If there's one sentence that cybersecurity professionals hear more than any other from small business owners, it's some variation of: "Why would anyone target us? We're too small."

It's an understandable assumption. When data breaches make the news, the headlines almost always involve large enterprises, government agencies, or major financial institutions. It's natural to conclude that cybercriminals are focused on the biggest targets with the deepest pockets.

The problem is that this assumption doesn't reflect how modern cybercrime actually works—and acting on it can be extraordinarily expensive.

The Misconception and the Reality

The "too small to be a target" belief rests on a mental model of cybercrime that's roughly twenty years out of date. In that model, a hacker sits in a dark room, carefully selecting a specific high-value target, and spends weeks or months breaking in. Under that model, it would indeed make little sense to target a twenty-person accounting firm when you could go after a major bank.

Modern cybercrime doesn't work that way.

Today's attacks are overwhelmingly automated. Attackers use tools that scan the internet continuously, probing millions of IP addresses, email domains, and web applications for known vulnerabilities. They aren't selecting targets—they're identifying opportunities. Any business with an internet connection, an email system, and insufficiently protected endpoints is a viable target, regardless of size.

We explored the mechanics behind this shift in our article on why cybercriminals are targeting small businesses in 2026.

Why Small Businesses Are Attractive, Not Invisible

Far from being overlooked, small businesses possess several characteristics that make them more attractive to certain types of attackers, not less:

Lower Defenses

Enterprise organizations typically invest heavily in security infrastructure—dedicated security teams, around-the-clock monitoring, incident response capabilities, and layered technical controls. Most small businesses have none of these. For an attacker running automated tools, the path of least resistance almost always leads to smaller organizations.

Valuable Data, Modest Protection

A twenty-person law firm holds confidential client information across dozens of matters. A small medical practice maintains patient health records. An accounting firm has access to the financial details of hundreds of businesses and individuals. The data these organizations hold is every bit as valuable as what sits in enterprise systems—often more so, because it's concentrated and less protected.

Gateway to Larger Targets

Many small businesses operate as vendors, suppliers, or service providers to larger organizations. Compromising a small business can provide a pathway into enterprise networks through trusted connections—a tactic that has been used in several well-documented supply chain incidents. In this model, the small business isn't the end target. It's the entry point.

More Likely to Pay Ransoms

When a small business's systems are encrypted by ransomware and operations grind to a halt, the pressure to pay is immense. Without robust backup systems or the resources to sustain an extended outage, many small businesses feel they have no choice. Attackers understand this dynamic and factor it into their targeting decisions.

The Numbers Behind the Myth

While specific statistics vary depending on the source and methodology, the consistent finding across security research is clear: small businesses are not just targeted—they're targeted disproportionately relative to their perception of risk.

  • Multiple security reports indicate that small and medium-sized businesses account for a significant majority of cyber attack victims
  • The financial impact per incident on small businesses, while smaller in absolute terms than enterprise breaches, is proportionally devastating—often representing a substantial percentage of annual revenue
  • Many small businesses that experience a significant cyber incident struggle to recover financially, with some unable to continue operations
  • Ransomware attacks against smaller organizations have been climbing steadily as automation makes targeting them economically viable for attackers

We examined the financial dimensions of this reality in our piece on the cost of data breaches and in our more recent article on the real cost of downtime.

The Automation Factor

Perhaps the most important thing for small business owners to understand is how automation has transformed the economics of cybercrime.

When attacks had to be carried out manually, there was a natural limit on how many targets an attacker could pursue. Going after a small business with limited assets didn't justify the time investment when larger, more lucrative targets existed.

Automation erased that constraint. Modern attack tools can:

  • Scan millions of potential targets simultaneously
  • Identify unpatched software, open ports, and misconfigured systems automatically
  • Deploy phishing campaigns to thousands of email addresses with minimal human effort
  • Launch ransomware across compromised networks without individual attention from the attacker

As we discussed in our piece on how AI is making malware smarter, artificial intelligence is accelerating this trend further. AI-powered tools can generate personalized phishing emails at scale, adapt to defensive measures in real time, and operate continuously without human oversight.

The cost per attack has dropped to the point where targeting a small business is nearly as cheap as targeting a large one. When the marginal cost approaches zero, every vulnerable organization becomes a worthwhile target.

What the "Too Small" Belief Actually Costs

The danger of the "too small to be a target" assumption isn't just that it's factually incorrect—it's that it drives decision-making. Specifically, it leads to:

Underinvestment in Basic Protections

If you genuinely believe you won't be targeted, it's rational to minimize spending on security. But this creates a self-fulfilling vulnerability: the less you invest, the more exposed you become, and the more attractive you are to automated attack tools scanning for easy entry points.

Delayed Response

When business owners don't believe they're at risk, they're slower to recognize the signs of an attack in progress. Unusual system behavior gets attributed to IT glitches. Strange emails get dismissed as spam. By the time the reality becomes clear, the damage is often already done.

No Incident Response Preparation

Organizations that don't believe they'll be attacked don't plan for being attacked. When it happens—and it increasingly does—they're starting from zero. Every decision is made under pressure, without a framework, and often at significant financial cost. We covered why planning before something happens matters so much for exactly this reason.

Employee Complacency

The belief that "we're too small" inevitably permeates the organization. If leadership doesn't take security seriously, employees won't either. Clicking suspicious links, reusing passwords, and ignoring security protocols all become more likely in an environment where the threat is perceived as theoretical rather than real.

Reframing the Question

The productive question isn't "Are we big enough to be a target?" It's "Are we protected enough to withstand what's already being thrown at us?"

Because the attacks aren't coming someday. The automated scans, the phishing campaigns, the credential-stuffing attempts—they're happening right now, to businesses of every size, continuously. The question is whether your defenses are sufficient to repel the attempts that are already hitting your systems.

Reframing the conversation this way shifts the focus from abstract risk assessment to practical readiness:

  • Are your systems patched and up to date?
  • Is multi-factor authentication enabled across your critical accounts?
  • Do your employees know how to recognize and report suspicious communications?
  • Are your backups current, tested, and stored separately from your production systems?
  • Is someone actively monitoring your systems for signs of compromise?

Our cybersecurity checklist for small businesses covers these fundamentals in more detail.

Starting Somewhere

The purpose of this article isn't to create alarm—it's to replace a dangerous assumption with a more accurate understanding of the current landscape. Small businesses don't need enterprise-grade security budgets or in-house security operations centers. What they do need is to stop operating under the assumption that their size makes them invisible.

Even incremental steps—enabling multi-factor authentication, ensuring backups are current, providing basic security awareness training to employees—can meaningfully reduce risk. The key is acknowledging that the risk exists in the first place.

Because in cybersecurity, the most expensive thing a business can believe is that it doesn't need to worry.

This article is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional security, legal, or compliance advice. Organizations should consult with qualified professionals to assess their specific circumstances and develop appropriate protective measures.