Key Takeaways
- Recent data from Proton found that small businesses are particularly at risk when it comes to data breaches.
- Companies with 10-249 employees account for 48% of data breaches in 2025, while companies with under 10 workers make up 23% of data breaches, for a total of 71%.
- Data also shows that there have been nearly 800 confirmed data breaches in 2025, with more than 300 million records exposed.
Hackers are apparently going after the little guys in 2025, with information from Proton showing that 71% of data breaches have targeted businesses with fewer than 250 employees.
There’s no denying that data breaches have become a hot-button issue for businesses in the modern era. They have become troublingly common, with the cost of each cyber attack putting businesses at risk of financial loss and even insolvency.
Even worse, these bad actors appear to be targeting smaller businesses a lot more than large corporations, likely due to the lack of resources available to fend them off.
Small Business Most at Risk of Data Breach
According to data from Proton, which tracks data breaches across the business landscape, there have been almost 800 attacks in 2025 so far, exposing more than 300 million records of user data.
On top of that, small businesses have been in the crosshairs, with 23% of data breaches occurring at businesses with fewer than 10 employees, and 48% of data breaches occurring at business with between 10 and 250 employees.
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That amounts to 71% of data breaches occurring at business with fewer than 250 employees.
Why Are Small Businesses Targeted Most?
The sad truth that small businesses are targeted more than large enterprises when it comes to cybersecurity threats is not a new phenomenon. In fact, for the last decade, studies have found consistently that hackers are far more likely to focus on companies with fewer employees. So, why is that?
In all likelihood, hackers are targeting small businesses for a couple of reasons. For one, they have fewer resources and smaller budgets, which means they likely aren’t spending much on cybersecurity to ward off attacks.
On top of that, fewer employees means fewer lines of defense, so the path to a hack generally presents fewer obstacles at small businesses.
How to Protect Your Business from Data Breaches
Cyber criminals are targeting small businesses because, generally speaking, they are easier to hack than large corporations. Luckily, that doesn’t have to be the case for your particular business.
For starters, you need to train your employees. The reality is that human error is still the most common entry point for the majority of breaches, so if your employees know what to look out for, these hackers won’t be able to pull it off.
Beyond that, invest as much as you can in cybersecurity. Obviously small businesses are often working with much stricter budgets, but when you consider the potential cost of a data breach, these kind of security protocols are more than worth the cost.
