Overview
- Eighty-one percent of small businesses reported a security or data breach in the past year, signaling pervasive exposure.
- AI-powered attacks were identified as a root cause in more than 40% of incidents, marking a shift toward external, sophisticated threats.
- Among breached firms, 62.5% reported total financial impacts above $250,000 and 36.7% exceeded $500,000.
- For the first time, 38.3% of leaders said they raised prices to cover cyber incident costs, a “cyber tax” the ITRC says can fuel inflation.
- Leaders who felt “very prepared” fell to 38.4% and adoption of basic controls like multi-factor authentication dropped to 27.2%, based on an August 2025 SurveyMonkey poll of 662 small-business owners and executives.