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Call it irony or coincidence, but October, the month in which we celebrate mischief and pranks, also is designated to remind companies that cyber criminals continue their bad tricks. \u00a0October is annual National Cyber Security Awareness Month (NCSAM), <\/a>a collaborative effort between government and industry to ensure that companies and individuals protect their information and themselves online. It\u2019s a reminder for small businesses if they don\u2019t have a cyber attack response plan, they should work on one.<\/p>\n Results just released from Nationwide\u2019s second annual Small Business Indicator<\/a>, which included 502 small businesses with less than 300 employees, indicate that 78% of participants still don\u2019t have a cyber attack response plan, although 54% experienced at least one type of attack. \u00a0Among the companies that did experience an attack, 60% said that it took longer than a month to recover. Yet despite the potential disruption to business and the loss of sensitive company and customer information, 45% of those without a plan in place don\u2019t feel their company will be affected by an attack<\/p>\n Computer viruses at 37% topped the list of types of attacks followed by phishing at 20%.\u00a0\u00a0 Respondents also experienced:<\/p>\n\n
Remote and mobile workers up the security ante<\/h4>\n