The company specialized in cybersecurity and management of critical systems, S2 Grupo, has carried out a study on SMEs and cybersecurity, which shows that these organizations currently face mainly seven barriers that they need to overcome to protect their cybersecurity and the continuity of their business. business.
Your lack of knowledge about applicable information security standards
In many cases, especially among those SMEs that do not belong to the ICT sector, there is a lack of knowledge about the existing standards. They often lack a single point of reference or query, so that they can ask for advice on which standard is the most suitable for them because it is the one that best suits their needs, requirements by third parties, etc.
Lack of management commitment
Due to the fact that the resources of SMEs are usually more limited and that their efforts are focused on being competitive in their business field, it is difficult for management to clearly perceive how implementing information security standards adds value to their business. business and can give them a competitive advantage over the competition.
Misperception about the targets of cyberattacks
Among the majority of managers and employees of SMEs, there is a widespread belief that cyberattacks mainly affect large organizations, and not companies of their size, since they do not store and/or process such critical information.
Lack of input in the standards development process
The design of information security standards is mainly driven by large organizations, and these are intended to cover their multiple business processes.
Lack of cybersecurity capabilities
One of the main actions required when implementing a standard is to assign information security roles and responsibilities to some employees. The security roles that are required to manage these standards are various and with different profiles, and this exceeds the human resource capacity of most SMEs.
Limited budget and resources
The small budget allocated to information security seems to be one of the great impediments for SMEs when it comes to implementing a standard. It must be taken into account that the implementation of these requires investment in specialized consultants to guide them.
Risk management
For most SMEs, information security is still an emerging field and they do not apply the same degree of rigor when evaluating information security risks as they do when evaluating financial, legal, operational, etc.
