Why Cyber Readiness Can’t Wait!

Key Takeaways for SMEs from the Bitdefender 2025 Cybersecurity Assessment Report:

Cybersecurity isn’t just an enterprise concern anymore. As the 2025 Bitdefender Cybersecurity Assessment Report reveals, today’s threat landscape is faster, stealthier, and more complex than ever before – and small to mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) are squarely in the crosshairs.

Cyber threats are evolving rapidly, making reputation management and proactive security measures essential for all organisations.

With insights drawn from over 1,200 security professionals across six countries, this report paints a stark picture: traditional tools are falling short, AI is reshaping both attack and defence, and internal gaps in perception and capability are leaving many organisations exposed.

Understanding and mitigating cyber risk is now critical, as failing to do so can result in significant financial and reputational damage. Many firms are struggling to keep up with these evolving threats, highlighting the widespread vulnerability across UK businesses.

So, what should SMEs take away from these global findings?

1. The Threat Is Already Inside the Walls

Modern attacks are no longer just about breaking in. They’re about logging in.

A staggering 84% of major cyberattacks analysed in the report now use “Living Off the Land” (LOTL) techniques. These attacks manipulate legitimate tools like PowerShell and Remote Desktop Protocol to quietly infiltrate systems without raising alarms.

The result? Traditional security solutions, and more broadly, traditional security measures, are often inadequate and miss them entirely.

Takeaway for SMEs: You don’t need to be a global enterprise to be at risk. Even basic administrative tools can become an attacker’s entry point. Implement strict access controls, minimise unused tools, and ensure regular audits of all permissions.

2. Shrinking the Attack Surface Is Mission-Critical

68% of surveyed security leaders agree: proactive defence starts with reducing the attack surface. Every unused application, over-permissioned user, or dormant credential represents a potential attack vector.

SMEs must focus on:

• Regularly reviewing software inventory
• Removing outdated or unused applications
• Implementing the principle of least privilege (PoLP)

This strategy doesn’t just reduce the number of ways an attacker could get in – it also simplifies your environment, making security operations easier and more effective.

Securing your technical infrastructure as part of this process is essential to minimise vulnerabilities and ensure robust cybersecurity.

3. Confidence Doesn’t Equal Readiness

There’s a clear disconnect in how cyber readiness is perceived within organisations.

While 45% of C-level executives report being “very confident” in their organisation’s security posture, only 19% of mid-level managers feel the same.

This gap indicates misaligned priorities, misguided investments, and potential blind spots in how risk is understood and addressed. Building a cybersecurity-aware organisation is essential to bridge these gaps, ensuring that security practices are embedded across all levels and functions.

For SMEs, where leadership teams are often stretched thin, this highlights the need for open dialogue between technical and strategic teams. Ensure your internal and external IT teams have a seat at the table when security strategy is being set.

4. AI: Your Greatest Ally – and a Growing Threat

63% of organisations say they’ve already experienced an AI-driven cyber incident in the past year, and 67% believe AI-powered attacks are on the rise.

Attackers are using generative AI to craft sophisticated phishing emails, create malware, and automate social engineering.

At the same time, defenders can use AI to detect anomalies, flag threats faster, and automate response.

The rapid evolution of emerging technologies like AI is reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, often outpacing traditional protection strategies and making it challenging for organisations to keep up.

SMEs should:

• Leverage AI-powered security tools with behavioural analysis and machine learning
• Stay informed about the capabilities and limitations of AI in the security space
• Invest in user awareness training to defend against increasingly convincing phishing attacks

5. The Human Firewall Still Matters Most

Technology alone isn’t enough. The report notes that 66% of organisations have seen an increase in Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks – a threat that relies not on code, but on trust.

For SMEs, where employees often juggle multiple roles, it’s critical to build a culture of cybersecurity:

• Regular phishing simulations
• Mandatory awareness training
• Training users to recognise and respond to threats
• Clear protocols for financial and sensitive communications

6. The Skills Gap Is Real, and It’s Growing

49% of cyber security professionals report burnout, and many plan to leave their roles in the next year.

The cyber talent shortage is not just a hiring problem – it’s a risk factor. Recruiting and retaining the right talent is essential for effective cybersecurity, as skilled professionals are needed to keep pace with emerging threats and technological advancements.

For SMEs without a dedicated security team, this makes outsourcing critical. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solutions provide 24/7 monitoring, threat hunting, and incident response without the burden of building an in-house SOC.

7. Silence Isn’t a Strategy

58% of respondents say they were told to keep a breach confidential, despite it potentially being reportable. This growing pressure to “stay quiet” risks regulatory fines, reputational damage, and long-term trust erosion.

SMEs must treat breach disclosure as a structured process – one that prioritises transparency and rapid response. Having a documented incident response plan, reviewed annually, is essential, as it ensures your organisation is prepared for effectively responding to cyber incidents and mitigating their impact.

8. Resilience Demands a Layered Approach

Cybersecurity isn’t solved with a single tool or a one-time investment. Ongoing efforts are essential to adapt to evolving threats, including continuous monitoring, incident response planning, and staff training.

Bitdefender’s report makes a strong case for a layered defence model:

• Proactive prevention: Shrink the attack surface, harden configurations, manage identity access, and protect business assets and reputation through comprehensive risk management.
• Detection and response: Use EDR/XDR tools to identify and contain threats.
• Recovery: Maintain backups, test disaster recovery plans, and plan for breach disclosure.

SMEs can build resilience by:

• Partnering with security providers like Acora One that offer strategic guidance, not just tools
• Focusing on security as a journey, not a checkbox
• Recognising the need to invest adequately in security measures, ensuring sufficient resources and strategies are in place to counter sophisticated cyber threats
• Using integrated platforms that offer visibility across endpoints, cloud, and identity

9. When Prevention Fails: Cyber Insurance and Data Breach Response

In 2025, cyber attacks continue to evolve, exposing organisations to ever-increasing cyber security risks.

No company, especially small businesses, can afford to overlook the importance of cyber insurance as part of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy.

Even with the best defenses in place, new threats and sophisticated attacks can still breach your systems, making cyber resilience and rapid response essential.

Cyber insurance plays a key role in protecting businesses from the financial, operational, and reputational risks that follow a data breach or cyber attack.

In fact, many business leaders now consider cyber insurance an essential safeguard, helping organisations mitigate the impact of incidents ranging from business email compromise to ransomware.

For small businesses, which are often more vulnerable to cyber threats and may lack the resources of larger companies, having access to the right training resources and insurance coverage can be the difference between recovery and ruin.

The evolving cybersecurity landscape also means that risks can come from unexpected places—such as business partners and vendors.

Companies must ensure that their partners and vendors have robust cyber security measures in place to prevent vulnerabilities from being leveraged against them.

Protecting physical assets is no longer enough; organisations must prioritise the security of digital assets and sensitive data, especially as cloud adoption and remote work expand the attack surface.

When a data breach does occur, a well-planned response strategy is critical.

This includes not only having cyber insurance in place, but also ensuring your experts are trained to identify and respond to threats, and that incident response plans are regularly tested and updated.

Employees remain a critical line of defense, and ongoing awareness programs help identify vulnerabilities before bad actors can exploit them.

Leveraging cloud-based security tools and working with trusted vendors can help organisations detect and respond to cyber threats more effectively.

Building a culture of cybersecurity awareness—where every employee understands their responsibilities in protecting the company’s digital assets—further strengthens your overall cyber readiness.

Ultimately, investing adequately in cyber insurance and a robust cybersecurity strategy enables businesses to reduce risk exposure, respond quickly to incidents, and recover with confidence.

As current events and emerging threats continue to reshape the risk landscape, organizations must remain proactive, adaptable, and committed to protecting their data, operations, and reputation from the next wave of cyber attacks.

Final Thoughts: Cyber Readiness Is a Business Imperative

The Bitdefender 2025 Cybersecurity Assessment Report isn’t just a wake-up call for businesses, it’s a roadmap for SMEs to understand where the real risks lie and how to respond.

Becoming cyber ready is essential for SMEs to proactively face modern threats and demonstrate preparedness.

From LOTL attacks to generative AI threats, the landscape is evolving too fast to rely on old strategies.

For SMEs, the path forward lies in reducing complexity, closing perception gaps, empowering people, and embracing layered, proactive defence from Cyber Experts like Acora One.

Achieving cybersecurity readiness requires regular assessments, ongoing staff training, and a commitment to continuous improvement. Addressing vulnerability, both human and technical, is a key part of being prepared for cyber incidents.

Because when it comes to cybersecurity, waiting isn’t an option.

Protecting your customers/clients and their data is fundamental to maintaining trust and reputation as part of overall cyber readiness.

Sources:

Bitdefender Cybersecurity Assessment Report 2025: https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/businessinsights/official-2025-cybersecurity-assessment-report