CYBER SECURITY IN SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES

Abstract: The Internet has evolved over the years. Businesses and individuals have leveraged it to run theirdaily activities to make everything easier. Almost every business has a digital footprint that makesit more profitable. On the other hand, malicious actors leverage the Internet to launch attacks onindividuals and organizations in all sectors, such as finance, health, and education. Previousresearch has identified that SMEs are more prone to cyberattacks than large organizations becausethey lack installed robust, efficient security systems. Securing digital resources is critical formaintaining confidentiality, integrity, and data availability and mitigating huge losses. In addition,threats are becoming more sophisticated as technology continues to evolve. However, SMEs lagin cyberspace protection and are more prone to attacks.Recently, several techniques have been used to protect digital assets efficiently, most of themleveraging AI. Research shows that security systems that use machine learning to detect threatsautomatically are more effective than traditional rules-based ones. SMEs lag because adoptingnew technology involves several challenges. Therefore, this study aims to identify the challengesinvolved in implementing ML-IDS by SMEs in the context of the Technology, Organisation, andenvironment – TOE framework and propose solutions to overcome them.