Too small to be a target? That is exactly the problem.

It is one of the most common things we hear from founders: we are too small for anyone to bother attacking. It feels intuitive. Why would a criminal spend effort on a twenty-person startup when there are banks and enterprises to go after? The problem is that this is not how most attacks actually work.

Most attacks are not personal

The majority of breaches are opportunistic, not targeted. Automated tools scan the entire internet constantly, looking for a known weakness: an exposed database, a leaked key, an unpatched server. They do not know or care how big you are. If you are reachable and vulnerable, you are in scope. Being small does not make you invisible; it often just means you have fewer defences in the way.

Small teams are softer targets

Attackers also know that smaller companies tend to have less security in place: no dedicated team, fewer controls, and slower detection. That makes you easier, not less interesting. And the payoff can still be real, whether it is access to your customers, your cloud bill, your payment flows, or a foothold to reach a larger partner.

The good news is that the same opportunism cuts both ways. Closing the obvious doors, the exposed services, the weak credentials, the misconfigured cloud, removes you from the easy-target pool. You do not need an enterprise budget to stop being the path of least resistance. You just need to know where your doors are.