DBIR 2023: SME Cyber Defense Begins with the CIS Controls

This piece summarizes 2023 Verizon DBIR insights for SMEs—highlighting that most attacks are external (94%), financially motivated (98%), and often target credentials (54%)—and explains how Verizon mapped incident patterns to the CIS Controls via the CIS Community Defense Model; it advises organizations to prioritize safeguards using CIS Implementation Groups (IG1–IG3) to establish essential cyber hygiene and scale defenses based on risk and resources.