As a small-to-medium enterprise, you might think that hackers overlook your organisation. Headlines focus on high-profile attacks surrounding huge corporations, and you never hear of smaller companies suffering as much as their larger counterparts!
The truth is, smaller and medium-sized enterprises are still at risk, as attackers know that many don’t have the same in-house defence or budgets compared to larger organisations. For hackers, it’s easier to infiltrate multiple smaller organisations than attempt one larger one.
For SMEs, the consequences of even a single accident can be far more damaging. Increased downtime, regulatory fines, ruined reputation and damaged customer relationships, just to name a few…
Read on to learn the top benefits of cyber security services in Sheffield for your SME, the risks of bad cyber security, and threats to look out for in 2026.
Protection against cyber attacks
The most obvious but arguably most important benefit of outsourcing cybersecurity is to protect against cybercrime. Information theft is one of the fastest-growing and most expensive segments of cybercrime. Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated in their attacks, changing the ways they target, how they impact organisations and their methods of attack.
Social engineering continues to be the easiest form of cyberattack, with phishing, ransomware, and spyware being the easiest forms of entry. Data breaches can also include financial or otherwise confidential information. These include personally identifiable information, intellectual property, trade secrets and more.
GDPR and legal compliance
Cybercrime not only affects those internally involved in your organisation, but it can also impact clients, stakeholders, and others externally involved. Following Brexit, the UK implemented its own version of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), hosting similar requirements to the EU version. All UK businesses that process personal data must comply- regardless of size.
The UK GDPR applies to organisations that:
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- Process personal data of any UK individuals
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- Handles data as part of business activities
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- Stores or uses customer information, employee records or identifiable personal information.
Penalties for non-compliance include fines of:
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- Up to 2% of the total worldwide annual turnover of the preceding financial year. These fines usually apply to failures in record keeping, data retention, or not having a lawful basis for some activities.
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- Up to 4% or £17.5m of annual global turnover, whichever is highest. Often applied to more serious infringements, such as ignoring data subjects’ rights, unlawful processing, or failure to notify affected individuals of a serious data breach promptly.
For smaller organisations especially, these can make or break a business. The cost of inaction is expensive, and ensuring data is tightly protected will not only save your organisation from risks but also give you peace of mind.
Cost of breaches
In 2025, just over four in ten businesses and three in ten charities reported having experienced any kind of cybersecurity breach in the last 12 months. This equates to roughly 612,000 UK businesses and 61,000 UK charities. Phishing remains the most prevalent and disruptive type of attack, experienced by 85% of businesses and 86% of charities.
According to the BBC, the costs of a breach are:
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- £7,960 for micro/ small businesses
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- £12,560 for medium/ large businesses
On top of risks surrounding GDPR, the actual cost to resolve a cyberattack is high and easily preventable with the correct security measures in place.
Emerging threats
AI
Cyberattacks are quickly evolving, especially as they start benefiting from AI to create more sophisticated attacks. These include deepfake audio and video files, and automated attack tools.
Quantum computing
Quantum computing is an advanced field of computing that uses the principles of quantum mechanics to process information differently from classical computers, to put it simply. Although it is still emerging, it will pose long-term challenges to businesses.
Quantum computing can solve complex problems faster than classical computers, such as factoring large numbers (cryptography). Cryptography threatens cybersecurity as quantum computers will be able to solve complex mathematical problems that support popular encryption methods.
Remote work risk
More employees of SMEs are working from home, and over 60% of SMEs allow employees to use personal IT equipment for work. This creates even greater security risks for SMEs.
Outsourcing cyber security services in Sheffield
When talking about cyberattacks, it’s no longer a question of if, but when. No SME can fully eliminate risk, but with the right security measures in place, you can hugely lessen it.
Here at Daffodil IT, we provide comprehensive IT support and various cybersecurity services in Sheffield for organisations like yours. Whether you need tech assistance, robust cybersecurity, new hardware or more, we’re confident we can help your business prosper.
Get in touch with one of our specialists today and find out how we can help you!
