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Cyber readiness for SMBs: Getting the basics right

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AI is changing cybercrime but SMB cyber readiness still largely depends on closing the familiar gaps

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Business Security

AI is changing cybercrime, but SMB cyber readiness still largely depends on closing the familiar gaps

Phil Muncaster

Phil Muncaster

03 Jul 2026 • , 5 min. read

Cyber readiness for SMBs: Getting the basics right

AI is changing attackers’ toolkits. It can help criminals write better lures, scale social engineering and speed up reconnaissance, all while generally lowering the barrier to entry for less skilled attackers. Organizations are right to pay attention, especially because malicious use of AI makes old gaps a more urgent test of an organization’s cyber readiness.

Meanwhile, the first points of failure remain strikingly familiar and typically involve the usual suspects, such as a phishing link that an employee clicks on or a vulnerability that isn’t patched in time. Unlike truly AI-powered malware (which remains a rare sight), these are not the flashiest risks in cybersecurity, but they remain among the most important ones for businesses trying to improve their readiness.

ESET SMB Cyber Readiness Index 2026

Fortunately, the threats that are still causing the majority of incidents also have tried-and-tested mitigations that should help to keep your business safe.

“AI-powered malware” is cited as the top concern of global SMBs for the year ahead, according to the . It’s even higher (33%) in North America. However, if we’re taking the definition to mean malware that uses AI in an automated and real-time way, it’s more of a topic for the research community than it is for cybersecurity practitioners.

ESET discovered the first example of However, even this is likely to have been a proof-of-concept (PoC). Meanwhile, , which ESET discovered earlier this year, was the first-known Android malware to abuse generative AI (GenAI) in its execution flow to achieve persistence.

There have been relatively few, if any, similar discoveries by threat researchers. It’s also true that ESET’s MDR service has no evidence of incidents in which GenAI played a significant role. Threat actors do benefit from AI support, but few are operationalizing the technology in real time for truly automated tasks.

A more profitable approach for SMB leaders would be to pay more attention to the real causes of incidents. For many SMBs, the first point of failure is still much more familiar: a phishing message that works, a vulnerability left unpatched, an alert no one sees, or a password that should never have been reused. These are not the flashiest risks in cybersecurity, but they remain among the most important ones for businesses trying to improve their readiness.

To this end, ESET data is instructive. It points to the following as the top threats facing smaller businesses:

This isn’t to say that SMBs should ignore AI-enabled threats. The key is to recognize that many of the above risks are exacerbated by AI, rather than the technology being used to create completely novel threats. For example, attackers are using AI to:

It may also compress the time businesses have to respond. If cybercriminals can identify vulnerable systems faster, produce exploit code more easily or automate parts of their workflow, then the window between disclosure, weaponization and exploitation may narrow further. For an SMB that already struggles with asset inventory and patch prioritization, that matters. One lesson is that this raises the cost of leaving the basics unfinished.

So what’s the answer? The good news is that best practices can still help to improve your security posture. Vulnerability and patch management is a good place to start. Continuously scan operating systems and applications for known CVEs to surface exposures, then deploy updates automatically according to policy and risk.

is increasingly critical. can create and store strong and unique credentials for employees, but even so, MFA is a non-negotiable line of defense these days. Use privileged account management (PAM) tools to reduce the attack surface and protect high-risk accounts.

Tackle security skills shortages and improve monitoring by outsourcing detection and response to a trusted third party. Using a (MDR) service can also reduce the complexity and integration challenges which a fifth (21%) of SMBs cite as their biggest barrier to improving security posture.