When big companies like Dropbox or Ashley Madison are hacked, the whole world hears about it. But how often do you hear about cyber attacks on the SMBs of the world? Probably not often, or never. Well, today, that’s all about to change. The NY Times recently ran an article telling the story of a small business, just like you, who suffered a major cyber attack.

The threat of being infected by malicious software is part and parcel of spending time on the internet, and no sooner have the antivirus and security software programs released an update or new patch than cyber criminals are scrambling for ways to circumvent them.

As shown by recent high-profile hacking scandals - targeting everyone from Sony Entertainment to the extramarital-affair-facilitating website Ashley Madison - cyber crime shows no sign of disappearing any time soon. In fact, experts predict that 2016 is going to be an even busier year for cyber criminals, hackers and scammers.

Something known as “state-sponsored cyber attacks” may not be something you have heard of until now. But with both Facebook and Google viewing the problem as serious enough to warn their users about, it seems this is an issue that could be here to stay.

It’s safe to say that malware attacks, phishing scams, and social media engineering practices are going nowhere fast. That means that, whether you are a home user or the owner or manager of a small or medium-sized business, if you choose to ignore safer online security practices you are putting your identity and the security of your company at serious risk.

Recently corporations have been targeted by scammers posing as executives or employees in order to initiate unauthorized international wire transfers. The so-called “spoofers” simply create a valid sounding email domain name and con businesses into sending money. According to the FBI, “CEO fraud”, “spoofing” and “business email compromise” has taken nearly $750 million in comparable scams from nearly 7,000 companies in the U.S. between October 2013 and August 2015.