On July 15, 2019, the House passed two bills aimed at raising the awareness of cybersecurity threats to small business owners and employees.
H.R. 2331 SBA Cyber Awareness Act requires the Small Business Administration (SBA) to notify each small business within 30 days after every cybersecurity risk and incident.
Additionally, H.R. 1649 Small Business Development Center Cyber Training Act of 2019 requires the SBA to establish a cyber counseling certification program to certify 10% of SBA employees at each of the approximately 900 Small Business Development Centers to provide cyber planning assistance to small businesses. It requires these SBA employees to advise small businesses on how to develop a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy.
As reported in The Hill, “Cybersecurity is one of the biggest threats to our economy and small businesses,” noted H.R. 2331’s primary sponsor, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), in April when introducing the bill to the House. “Our small businesses are the backbone of our economy but are increasingly the target of cyber attacks and theft of small business data and intellectual property.”
These bills aim to raise the awareness of cybersecurity risks among SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) and to help them formulate a cybersecurity strategy. Proofpoint Essentials and Proofpoint Security Awareness Training should be the cornerstones of an SMB’s cybersecurity strategy because they address the number one cybersecurity threat vector (email) and the number one risk that attackers rely on to execute attacks (employee susceptibility to social engineering attacks).
Proofpoint Essentials gives SMBs complete protection and detailed insight into threats targeting their people. Each month, Proofpoint Essentials blocks an average of 130 advanced email threats per SMB, including targeted phishing and malicious attachments.1
Additionally, Proofpoint Security Awareness Training is a Gartner Magic Quadrant leading solution for employee cybersecurity awareness, with phish simulation, training modules, email reporting and remediation.
To learn more on how you can protect your business, click here.
1 Based on Nov 2018 Proofpoint Essentials SMB Threat Landscape Research.