Small and medium-sized businesses contribute a lot of innovation and value in today’s digital economy. While fueling that growth, it’s also important for small businesses to adopt cybersecurity measures to protect the organization. That’s because cybercriminals have increased their focus on this business segment in recent years. According to Verizon, there was nearly a 200% increase in incidents targeting organizations with less than 1,000 employees between 2021 and 2022.
Since smaller firms often have limited resources for building out a full-stack cybersecurity program, it’s important to prioritize. Even the most essential cybersecurity solutions like investing in next-gen antivirus (NGAV) for the first line of defense can help prevent a large number of threats.
When you review cybersecurity solutions, you should look for a vendor that can deliver protection as your company grows. Small businesses must address a wide gamut of security needs and a vendor that takes a holistic approach to cybersecurity will provide you the best fit to do that. Also, make sure the vendor provides 24/7 coverage for technical support and that they have a good reputation in the market for maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.
Best Cybersecurity Solutions for Small Businesses
(in alphabetical order)Bitdefender
Bucharest, Romania | 2001 | www.bitdefender.com
Bitdefender is a global security technology company that provides threat protection to both business and consumer customers. The company develops and delivers cybersecurity products and services, including endpoint protection, cloud and managed security, storage security, patch management and IoT security. Bitdefender’s cybersecurity platform unifies endpoint security and analytics across endpoints and hybrid workloads with easy administration.
For NGAV, Bitdefender offers GravityZone Business Security for detecting advanced threats including fileless attacks, ransomware, and other zero-day threats in real-time.
Prospective customers can trial the product for free. Pricing starts at $36.99/year.
CrowdStrike
Austin, TX | 2011 | www.crowdstrike.com
CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity technology firm pioneering cloud-delivered protection for small and medium-sized businesses to enterprise-sized businesses. CrowdStrike offers a range of cybersecurity technologies and services to help companies protect their critical areas of cyber risk across endpoints and cloud workloads, identity, and data. The company’s platform, CrowdStrike Falcon®, leverages a single, lightweight agent to deliver advanced capabilities that help keep customers ahead of threat actors and stop breaches.
CrowdStrike offers Falcon Go, which is a NGAV solution built for medium and small businesses. Falcon Go provides threat protection against advanced attacks and device control for governing USB devices that could pose a risk.
Companies can buy the Falcon Go online or trial it for free. Pricing starts at $59.99/year.
ESET
Bratislava, Slovakia | 1992 | www.eset.com
ESET is a global digital security company based in the European Union that develops security software solutions for both consumers and businesses. The company’s products include endpoint protection, encryption and authentication, as well as a range of security services. ESET’s approach to cybersecurity combines machine learning, a cloud-powered reputation system and human expertise.
ESET Entry provides companies with multi-layered endpoint protection, featuring machine learning and brute force attack protection.
Companies can buy the product online. Pricing that includes the cloud console starts at $47.80/year.
Malwarebytes
Santa Clara, U.S. | 2008 | www.malwarebytes.com
Malwarebytes is an American global cybersecurity company that develops software solutions for both consumer and business customers. For business customers, Malwarebytes delivers cybersecurity products and services, including endpoint protection, vulnerability and patch management, DNS filtering and application blocking.
Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection provides malware protection with attack detection, threat blocking, and remediation that SMBs can manage from a central cloud platform, Malwarebytes Nebula.
Companies can buy Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection online or trial it for free. Pricing starts at $69.99/year.
McAfee
San Jose, U.S. | 1987 | www.mcafee.com
McAfee is an American global cybersecurity company that delivers security software products for consumers and small businesses. For its small business customers, McAfee offerings include endpoint protection and VPN products.
For their NGAV solution, McAfee Total Protection helps organizations guard against viruses, malware, ransomware, spyware and other online threats.
Prospective customers can trial the product for free or buy it online. Pricing starts at $23.99/year.
Sophos
Abingdon, England | 1985 | www.sophos.com
Sophos is a British-based global security software company, developing products for business and consumer customers. For its business customers, Sophos is primarily focused on providing security software to 1- to 5,000-seat organizations. The company develops security products and services for endpoint protection, encryption, network security, email security and cloud workload protection.
For NGAV, Sophos offers Intercept X Advanced that combines anti-exploit, anti-ransomware, AI and control technology to help businesses stop attacks before they impact endpoint systems.
Prospective customers can trial Intercept X Advanced for free. Pricing starts at $28/year.
Trend Micro
Tokyo, Japan | 1988 | www.trendmicro.com
Trend Micro is a global cybersecurity technology company that provides security offerings to both business and consumer customers. For its corporate customers, Trend Micro develops a range of software solutions and security services that help businesses address their needs for cloud security, endpoint protection and network defense. The company provides a lightweight agent that delivers visibility and management across the security tools.
Trend Micro offers Cloud One™ that provides a full range of advanced endpoint and workload security capabilities with unified visibility and management.
Prospective customers can trial the product for free. Pricing starts at $25.55/year.
Webroot
Broomfield, U.S. | 1997 | www.webroot.com
As a subsidiary of OpenText, Webroot is a global cybersecurity technology company that provides Internet security for consumers and businesses. SMB organizations can select from a range of products and services to manage cybersecurity needs across endpoint protection, encryption, email security, DNS protection and security awareness training. Webroot’s solutions harness the cloud and artificial intelligence to stop zero-day threats in real time.
As their NGAV offering, Webroot™ Business Endpoint Protection provides multi-vector protection against malicious files, scripts, exploits and URLs.
Customers can trial the product for free or purchase it online. Pricing starts at $30/year.
