Small businesses are especially open to cyber attacks — 69% say a serious breach has bypassed their email security solution — finds the 2022 SMB Cybersecurity Landscape Report, a study from Vade, conducted by Vanson Bourne. 

In addition, 91% feel cybersecurity will increase in importance over the next two years, and 67% of IT decision makers say it is a top priority. 

This is being driven by the growing sophistication of email cyber attacks (63%), the rise in remote/hybrid work environments (53%) and breachers/cyberattacks (53%). 

Moreover, 87% of organizations have invested more on cyber security in the last 12 months, and 88% will do so within the next year. 

Of those polled, 92% outsource at least some of their IT operations to a managed service provider (MSP), and 91% are using an MSP for cyber security. And 77% use the built-in security features offered by their email provider—e.g., Microsoft 365, G-Suite.

Companies with 1,000 or more employees are least likely to have suffered a breach—19% say they have, versus 38% of firms with 10-249 staffers. But 78% of the larger organizations in this sample say cyberattacks/hackers are more sophisticated.    

Vade and Vanson Bourne surveyed 500 IT security and business decision makers between May and June 2022. These included respondents from 150 U.S. organizations with 10-249 employees, 200 with 250-999 employees and 150 with 1,000 employees.