According to a study by US Bank, 82% of all businesses that fail did so because they were unable to maintain a sufficient cash flow. Unfortunately, this statistic masks a number of problems that frequently hurt cash flow, so the root problems often go unaddressed until it is too late. New research shows that data breaches are a huge factor in business failures. This is hardly surprising, because there were around 30 major data breaches in 2017 alone.

The consequences of data breaches are severe for small businesses. One study found that 60% of all companies that suffer a data breach are forced into bankruptcy within six months. Despite the frightening lesson that they should learn from this, many small businesses are still reluctant to take their cybersecurity seriously. They believe that the probability that their company will be targeted by a cyberattack is too low to worry about.