Is a 10-person SMB really a target?

Yes, precisely because it is less protected. Ransomware attacks are automated and target anything reachable, regardless of size.

Is free antivirus enough?

For personal use, often. For a business, no: it covers neither servers, nor central supervision, nor suspicious behaviour. An EDR per device costs a few dinars a month.

How much does a security audit cost for an SMB?

A one-day audit with an action plan generally costs between 1,500 and 4,000 TND depending on the size of the infrastructure.

Do we need cyber insurance?

It is becoming common, but the insurer requires most of the measures above (MFA, backups, updates). Putting them in place is therefore the first step in any case.

Cybersecurity for SMBs: the 10 measures that prevent most incidents

You don't need a bank's budget to protect yourself. Ten concrete measures, ranked by effort, that any Tunisian SMB can put in place within a few weeks.

The incidents we see in SMBs almost never come from sophisticated attacks. They come from a reused password, an attachment opened on a Monday morning, a server that was never updated. The good news: the measures that matter are simple and inexpensive. Here are the ten we put in place first, from the quickest to the most structural.

Things to do this week

1. Turn on two-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible. Email, Microsoft 365, online banking, management tools. Even if a password leaks, the account stays closed. It is the measure with the best effort/protection ratio, and it is free.

2. Remove former employees' accounts. A forgotten account, with a password nobody watches any more, is an open door. Make the list today.

3. Update systems. Windows, browsers, the file server, the router. Most attacks exploit flaws fixed months ago.

Things to do this month

4. A password manager for the team. It ends reused passwords and sticky notes. Passwords become long, unique and properly shared between colleagues.

5. An offline or immutable backup. Ransomware encrypts everything it can reach. A copy on tape, or on storage the attacker cannot modify, is what lets you refuse to pay. Our article on Veeam backup for SMBs details the setup.

6. Limit rights. Nobody works day to day with an administrator account. Everyone accesses the folders they need, not the whole server. Tedious to set up once, and it contains an enormous amount of damage on the day.

7. Train the team on phishing. One hour is enough to learn to recognise a trapped email: approximate sender, artificial urgency, a link that does not lead where it claims. Repeat twice a year.

Things to do this quarter

8. A firewall that is configured, not just plugged in. The ISP's router is not a business firewall. Filter what comes in and goes out, separate the guest network from the servers, close unused ports.

9. Next-generation endpoint protection (EDR). Classic antivirus compares signatures; an EDR watches behaviour and blocks mass encryption before it finishes. For an SMB, offers are billed per device per month.

10. A written plan for the day it happens. Whom to call, what to unplug, where the backups are, how to inform clients. A one-page document, reviewed once a year, saves the hours that count.

Where to start

If you only do three things: MFA (1), the offline backup (5) and phishing training (7). They cover the three most frequent scenarios: the hijacked account, ransomware, the trapped email.

Semocode carries out one-day security audits for Tunisian SMBs, with an action plan ranked by priority and cost. Let's talk.