Comcast Business Reveals 2023 Small Business Cybersecurity Report

Comcast Business revealed its 2023 Small Business Cybersecurity Report, which found that, as small businesses expanded their digital footprint, they were at an increased risk for cyberattacks. The report provides insight into the current cyber threat landscape through anonymized data. This was obtained from fixed mobile devices that used Comcast’s SecurityEdge™ service from July 2022 to June 2023. In addition, it includes security insights from Comcast’s partner Akami.

Comcast Business provides a variety of technology solutions to help different-sized businesses. This includes connectivity, secure networking, advanced cybersecurity, and unified communications solutions. Moreover, Comcast Business, backed by a next-generation network, actively leads the industry with its recognized solutions.

Shena Seneca Tharnish, Vice President of Secure Networking and Cybersecurity Solutions at Comcast Business, said in a statement:

“As small businesses embrace remote and hybrid work policies, relying on off-network and mobile devices for access to applications and data, they become more appealing targets for cybercriminals. In the past year, SecurityEdge™ has successfully thwarted billions of threats, helping to protect tens of thousands of small businesses.”

As more devices connect to the Internet, cybercrime has surged. Criminals worldwide can launch attacks using online tools, making it hard to detect them. Not just individuals but organized groups and nation-states also consider it a relatively low-risk, high-ROI endeavor. Subsequently, in Comcast Business’ second quarter of 2023, 395,064,090 phishing attacks were blocked, 1,182,836,917 malware attacks were blocked, and 1,157,496,737 were blocked, according to its Cybersecurity Report. In addition, Akamai analysis of DNS traffic from mobile devices from Q2 2022 to Q1 2023 showed that nearly 1 in 10 devices attempted to reach out to domains associated with malware, phishing, or malicious bots. Moreover, Comcast’s SecurityEdge successfully:

• Blocked 28 million phishing attempts and helped protect 81,793 small businesses against phishing.
• Blocked 60 million accesses to websites associated with malware, preventing users at 69,485 small businesses from accessing malicious websites.
• Blocked more than 37 million instances of malicious bot activity for 38,946 small businesses.

Jonathan Morgan, Vice President of Network Security Product Management at Akamai, said in a statement:

“In our current digital age, the importance of safeguarding devices and data, regardless of their location, cannot be overstated. It’s critical for organizations of all sizes to stay secure in order to maintain trust from employees, customers, and other stakeholders. With Comcast Business’s SecurityEdge, customers can rest assured that they have the right tools and support in place to help protect their connected devices. We’re proud to be a key component in that solution with our Secure Internet Access services that protect businesses and families across the globe.”

The report also provides ways to avoid phishing attacks. These tips include:

• Looking carefully for typos in domain names
• Watching out for transposed letters or numbers
• Checking top-level domains (TLD)
• Checking website name
• Checking for letters and numbers that look alike
• If something feels off, paste it into a search bar to see what happens