Banco Santander helps SMEs lead a safe and responsible digital life

IT security and competitiveness

To ensure their growth, Spanish companies need to accelerate digital transformation, because connectivity creates a new reality. Using tools such as the Internet of Things and the Internet of Things, information has become a key material for increasing their competitiveness and flexibility in increasingly volatile markets.

According to the report Spanish Perspectives 2023: Digital Transformationprepared by KPMG in collaboration with the CEO, surveyed 58% of Spanish employers and managers “Digital transformation among strategic priorities”.

This raises another challenge: implementing useful and effective IT security policies. Namely, SMEs are an obvious target for this type of cyber attack because they do not devote much effort to taking the necessary cyber security measures.

To this vulnerability we must add the increase in mobility, driven mainly by the increase in new work formats such as remote work and the use of cloud tools.

The most common threats

Cyber ​​threats have consequences in two areas. The first may involve the cessation of activity of the affected company. The second leads to reputational crises due to loss of trust between customers and suppliers. This means economic losses that could jeopardize the continuity of these companies.

The most common attacks are usually so-called “malware”. This is a type of malware designed to be installed on common devices such as smartphones, tablets and computers, so that the user does not know that they have installed it. Once a device is infected, cybercriminals can do all kinds of damage, including data hijacking and theft.

Another phenomenon that has grown significantly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic is social engineering. In this case, attackers use different methods to trick users into obtaining information such as banking details, keys or confidential information. Phishing is the most common form of this practice and takes the form of email, text messages, digital impersonation, or fraudulent websites that appear to be official websites. Here, the victim of electronic fraud provides the required data because he trusts the sender of the message.