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Artificial intelligence is never far from the headlines, and small and medium sized businesses (SMEs )are facing a period of rapid change.
Those running them must contend with a whole new world of threats to the health of their firm and learn how to protect themselves.
AI also creates additional ways for SME firms to fall foul of regulators, or even the law.
It is not all bad though either – as AI can open up new opportunities to cut costs and grow a business too.
A familiar threat: Hacking
AI models greatly increase the ability of even modestly skilled hackers to gain unauthorised access to a businesses’ computer systems.
Whether it is a big upgrade to the quality and quantity of phishing emails, or directly hacking into servers by exploiting vulnerabilities in how they are configured, there are plenty of ways bad actors can harm an SME.
The costs can be significant and varied. From outright theft of money to stealing private customer information, a lot can go wrong without the right protection and security in place.
Conor O’Neill, co-founder and CEO of OnSecurity, said: “AI has increased the speed and complexity of cyberattacks, by allowing hackers to automate their activity and operate at scale.
“Cybercriminals are now using AI to write exploit code quickly, identify vulnerabilities in systems, adjust tactics by analysing defences and most commonly, generate phishing and deepfake content.
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O’Neill added that phishing attacks were the most prevalent and disruptive type of cyberattack last year, and warned using AI will become both more widespread and sophisticated over the coming months.
“The idea that small businesses aren’t at risk is a dangerous misconception,” he added.
Identity fraud
‘Deepfakes’ as they are often called, are AI-generated images, videos or voices that can be used to impersonate somebody. This opens-up a whole new world of fraud possibilities.
People posing as customers or suppliers and making fraudulent transactions is the most obvious risk, but there are many other potential pit falls.
For example, employing people who have no real qualifications for the job or may not even be allowed to work legally.
Ransomware
While this has been around for a number of years, AI takes the risk up a level, and makes it much easier to do.
Ransomware involves a malicious actor be able to run a program on the computers of a business and lock them, preventing the owner from accessing the computers or any of the important files stored on them
As the name suggests, an attacker will demand a ransom payment from the victim in order to grant them access to their own systems again.
Even if the ransom is paid, the attacker may not stick to their offer to release their grip on the systems.
And some AI benefits to businesses
There are very many ways AI can help an SME, and we are only just scratching the surface of what can be achieved.
AI models are now very proficient in accounting, so could deal with the company finances and remove the need for day-to-day oversight, for example.
Agentic AI is just beginning to be adopted and few SMEs use it extensively, but over time it is likely to be able to automate all the back office functions of a company, including marketing, diary organising and managing supply chains.
Creating automated funnels to capture new potential clients, researching new areas of opportunity and even such tasks as proofreading can also be areas where AI excels.
This can potentially mean the humans in the workforce can focus on growing the business through real relationship building or focusing on key growth tasks, rather than be tied up with the day to day operations or busywork.
