As cybersecurity professionals, we have often demanded that businesses care more about cybersecurity and privacy. Even if a business has the will to do so, how much can it reasonably afford to? Additionally, as the conversation grows to enforcing minimum cybersecurity standards, we need to address the cyber poverty line.

What’s cyber poverty? Pragmatically, what’s the minimum cost of access to cyber “healthcare”? Let’s explore these by the numbers, the consequences, the decisions that have to be made, and to really understand the challenges SMBs are facing. Spoiler, if we’re taking a traditional approach to security, it’s unrealistically hard.

  • For small businesses out there, below the poverty line, WTF can we do to survive?
  • What can we learn from the last 12 months, where our lives went almost fully digital.
  • Let’s talk about some choices we can make to give us all the best chance of thriving.

$ whoami

A friendly neighborhood cyber-janitor, cyber-landscaper, cyber-cartographer, and herder of cyber-cats (and unicorns). I hack stuff, to learn stuff and verify claims, and help people do cyber better, practically and holistically. OWASP Melbourne Chapter lead, and SecTalks Melbourne co-organiser, and helper at a few conferences.