In an age of ongoing digital transformation, cybercrime has quickly become today's fastest-growing form of criminal activity. Equally worrying for modern executives, it's also set to cost businesses $5.2 trillion worldwide within five years, according to Accenture.

With 43% of online attacks now aimed at small businesses, a favorite target of high-tech villains, yet only 14% prepared to defend themselves, owners increasingly need to start making high-tech security a top priority, according to network security leaders.

"Modern IT infrastructures are more complex and sophisticated than ever, and the amount of virtual ground that we've got to safeguard has also grown exponentially," explains Jesse Rothstein, CTO of online security provider ExtraHop. "From mobile to desktop interactions, cybercriminals can launch thousands of digital attacks designed to compromise your operations at every turn, only one of which ever needs to connect to cause serious disruption."

As a result, he says, it's guaranteed that virtually every modern organization's high-tech perimeters will eventually be breached. This being the case, for small business owners it's no longer a matter of considering if security threats will arise, but rather thinking in terms of when.

Worse, the consequences of cyberattacks continue to grow, with digital incidents now costing businesses of all sizes $200,000 on average, according to insurance carrier Hiscox. Sixty percent go out of business within six months of being victimized.

The frequency with which these attacks are happening is also increasing, with more than half of all small businesses having suffered a breach within the last year and 4 in 10 having experienced multiple incidents, reveals Hiscox.

At the same time, though, according to Keeper Security's 2019 SMB Cyberthreat Study, 66% of senior decision-makers at small businesses still believe they're unlikely to be targeted by online criminals. Similarly, 6 in 10 have no digital defense plan in place whatsoever, underscoring the need for heightened industry awareness and education across the board.

"Attackers are getting smarter, attacks are occurring faster, and incidents are becoming more complex," cautions Justin Fier, director of cyberintelligence and analytics at cyberdefense firm Darktrace. "The latest cyberattacks speedily exploit vulnerabilities in computer networks — which [can be infected] like human immune systems, changing thousands of times per second — and can overtake even major networks in an hour and a half."