According to a survey cited by the SBA, 41% of small businesses were cyberattack victims in 2023, with the median cost reaching $8,300 per incident. For the growing roster of retailers, healthcare providers, and service businesses driving Pflugerville's economic expansion along the Austin-Round Rock corridor, that's a hit that can derail a year of momentum. The good news is that the most common cybersecurity mistakes are also among the most preventable — if you know what to look for.
Are You Actually Installing Those Updates?
Outdated software is one of the easiest entry points for attackers. When vendors push patches and updates, they're often closing known vulnerabilities — and hackers actively target businesses still running older versions. Enable automatic updates wherever possible, and schedule a quick manual check for any software that doesn't update itself. It takes 10 minutes and closes doors attackers count on being open.
Weak Passwords Are Still Costing Businesses
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) — requiring a second verification step beyond a password — is one of the highest-impact, lowest-cost protections available. Yet a surprising number of businesses still rely on simple, reused passwords and no MFA at all. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, employees and work-related communications are the leading cause of small business breaches, making access controls a front-line defense. Require strong, unique passwords and enable MFA on every account that supports it — especially email and financial platforms.
Your Team Is Both Your Biggest Risk and Best Defense
CISA warns that no business is too small to be a target, citing FBI data: $2.7 billion lost to business email compromise in 2024 alone. Phishing attacks — deceptive emails designed to steal credentials or install malware — are the most common way attackers get in, and they're getting harder to spot. Regular training that walks employees through current scams, safe email habits, and data-handling best practices is non-negotiable. Even a 30-minute quarterly refresher can dramatically reduce your exposure.
In practice: Train your team to treat unexpected requests — wire transfers, password resets, invoice redirects — with healthy skepticism, even when the sender looks familiar.
What Happens If You Lose Your Data Tomorrow?
If ransomware hit your business in the morning, how quickly could you get back to work? Small businesses face ransomware at alarming rates — ConnectWise's 2025 State of SMB Cybersecurity Report found that 47% of firms under $10M in revenue were hit in the past year, and 61% fear a serious attack could shut them down entirely. A data backup and recovery plan means regularly copying critical files to a secure, separate location — ideally cloud-based — and testing that the backups actually restore when you need them. The SBA recommends weekly cloud backups as a minimum baseline.
Neglecting Network Security
Network security is easy to overlook when you don't have a dedicated IT team. CISA's guidance for small businesses recommends moving away from on-premises servers for mail and file storage, noting these systems "require a great deal of skill to secure" and that "few small businesses have the time and expertise to keep them secure." At minimum: use a firewall, segment your guest Wi-Fi from your internal business network, and periodically audit who has access to what. Those three steps eliminate a significant portion of common attack surfaces.
Mobile Devices Are a Wide-Open Gap
If your staff checks email or accesses business accounts on personal phones, those devices are part of your security perimeter whether you've configured them that way or not. Require screen locks and encryption on any device that touches business data. Establish a clear BYOD (bring your own device) policy — or move to company-issued devices with managed settings — so expectations are consistent across your team.
Skipping Security Audits Lets Problems Compound
A security audit is a systematic review of your systems, policies, and employee practices to find vulnerabilities before attackers do. The Federal Trade Commission recommends the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 to help small businesses manage cybersecurity risk across six areas: Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover — and it's free. You don't need an outside consultant to get started. NIST released a Small Business Quick Start Guide in 2024 specifically for businesses with little to no existing security plan in place.
Converting sensitive files to password-protected PDFs before sharing by email or saving to shared drives adds a meaningful barrier — even if an account is compromised, the file itself stays locked. A free online tool like Adobe Acrobat also shows you how to add pages to a PDF, reorder sections, and delete pages, so you can update contracts and proposals without rebuilding documents from scratch.
Start Here, Pflugerville
According to an SBA survey, 88% of small business owners felt vulnerable to a cyberattack — yet many don't know where to begin. Pflugerville is growing fast, and that growth means more vendors, more customer data, and more entry points for attackers. But it also means a stronger business community to learn from.
Start with what you can control today: update your software, turn on MFA, train your team, and test your backups. The Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce connects members with educational resources and peer networks — bring the cybersecurity conversation to your next Chamber event or Job Fair. The businesses that flourish long-term are the ones that treat digital security as part of daily operations, not a problem to sort out after something goes wrong.
This Chamber Deal is promoted by Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce.
