It Never Ceases to Amaze Me: Why Small Businesses Wait for a Cyber Disaster (and How to Avoid It)
By Elston Garrison · Updated October 31, 2025
Quick nav:
The painful pattern ·
Real SMB nightmare stories ·
The numbers ·
The hidden costs ·
What to do now ·
Talk to references
The painful pattern
It never ceases to amaze me how many small business owners don’t want to spend money on IT services—until they’ve just spent a fortune recovering from a hack, breach, or total outage.
Don’t get me wrong, those folks often become our best, most loyal clients. Once they’ve lived through the pain—the downtime, the lost productivity, the sleepless nights, and the reputation damage—they finally understand the value of proactive IT. I just haven’t figured out how to reach more owners before they go through that gauntlet.
I keep references on standby—clients who are happy to share how a solid IT strategy saved them—but many still think, “That would never happen to me.” The truth: a cyber-event is brutal to recover from. Even the most basic systems can become your worst nightmare once you lose control of them.
Real SMB nightmare stories (this happens every day)
Efficient Escrow (California)
Cybercriminals slipped a trojan into the environment and initiated wire transfers: $432,215 to Moscow, then additional transfers totaling roughly $1.1M to banks in China. The firm shut down and laid off staff. A hard lesson many don’t realize: consumer banking protections often don’t apply to businesses.
PATCO Construction (Maine)
A family-owned company had a workstation infected with malware that captured online-banking credentials. Attackers executed a flurry of ACH transfers, siphoning about $588,000 in a week. Some funds were recovered after a lengthy fight, but the operational and financial impact lingered.
Wright Hotels (Real Estate)
Attackers compromised the owner’s email, quietly watched back-and-forth with the bookkeeper, then impersonated the owner to request a “routine” wire. Losses topped $1M. No ransomware; just business email compromise (BEC) and process manipulation.
“I’m too small to be a target” is a myth. Most attacks on small businesses never make headlines—but they make payrolls, balance sheets, and owners’ lives miserable.
The numbers are worse than the stories
- Ransomware/extortion malware shows up disproportionately in SMB incidents compared to large enterprises.
- Independent research indicates that a significant portion of SMBs may shut down after a single cyberattack; even sub-$50k events can be existential for many.
- Attackers automate discovery and exploitation—nobody “chooses” you; scripts find your weak doors and walk in.
The hidden costs you feel for months
- Downtime: People can’t work, customers can’t buy, invoices don’t go out.
- Trust & reputation: Clients hesitate, deals slip, reviews sour.
- Compliance exposure: Reporting timelines and data-handling rules don’t care that you’re “small.”
- Owner burnout: Nights and weekends lost to remediation and clean-up.
Every owner I’ve met who went through this says the same thing: “I would have paid a fraction up front to avoid it.”
What to do now (prevention is cheaper—every time)
- Harden identities & email: MFA everywhere, conditional access, phishing-resistant auth, plus BEC safeguards (approval workflows, call-back verification).
- Backups that actually restore: 3-2-1 strategy, offline/immutable copies, and routine test restores.
- Patch & protect endpoints: Automated patching, EDR/XDR with 24/7 monitoring, and application allow-listing where practical.
- Segment & least privilege: Separate admin accounts, role-based access, and limit blast radius.
- Train & test: Short, frequent security awareness plus phishing simulations tied to real coaching.
- Plan the bad day: Incident response playbooks, who-to-call lists, tabletop exercises, and cyber insurance aligned with your actual controls.
Good IT isn’t about buzzwords. It’s about risk management, discipline, and readiness. Managed services exist to prevent the crises that drain your accounts and your energy.
Don’t Wait Until You’re the Story
Talk to a TEKZYS reference client before your “lesson” gets taught the hard way. Ask them how proactive IT changed their risk—and their sleep.