Nation-State Threats Put SMBs in Their Sights

Nation-state actors and cybercriminals are increasingly targeting small and midsize businesses—often as supply-chain vectors for larger organizations—with ransomware and espionage activity; attackers exploit phishing and known software vulnerabilities and sometimes 'moonlight' between state-sponsored espionage and financially motivated ransomware. The report highlights disproportionate impact on SMBs across finance, government, technology, manufacturing and services (top five industries account for ~65% of incidents), notes critical-infrastructure SMBs have been affected (e.g., activity attributed to Volt Typhoon), and recommends mitigations such as multifactor authentication, EDR/MDR and managed services to improve resilience.