Most common cybersecurity vulnerabilities

Last updated: 2025-08-23

What are the most common cybersecurity vulnerabilities in small and medium-sized businesses?

  • Limited employee cybersecurity awareness and training
  • Incorrect access provisioning during onboarding (wrong roles or permissions)
  • Failure to promptly remove access during offboarding
  • Missing, unreliable, or untested data backups
  • Weak or poorly documented security policies and procedures
  • Delayed maintenance and missed security patches on systems and apps
  • Misconfigured access controls, permissions, or role-based access (RBAC)
  • Insufficient logging and monitoring of user and admin activity
  • Inability to detect or respond to suspicious or malicious user behavior
  • Not performing regular vulnerability scans and risk assessments
  • Lack of a risk-based approach to prioritize vulnerabilities and business impact
  • Excessive, shared, or redundant administrator privileges
  • Use of outdated or weak SSL/TLS configurations
  • Incorrect or missing email security records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)