Recital 56

(56)

Member States should, in their national cybersecurity strategies, address the specific cybersecurity needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. Small and medium-sized enterprises represent, across the Union, a large percentage of the industrial and business market and often struggle to adapt to new business practices in a more connected world and to the digital environment, with employees working from home and business increasingly being conducted online. Some small and medium-sized enterprises face specific cybersecurity challenges such as low cyber-awareness, a lack of remote IT security, the high cost of cybersecurity solutions and an increased level of threat, such as ransomware, for which they should receive guidance and assistance. Small and medium-sized enterprises are increasingly becoming the target of supply chain attacks due to their less rigorous cybersecurity risk-management measures and attack management, and the fact that they have limited security resources. Such supply chain attacks not only have an impact on small and medium-sized enterprises and their operations in isolation but can also have a cascading effect on larger attacks on entities to which they provided supplies. Member States should, through their national cybersecurity strategies, help small and medium-sized enterprises to address the challenges faced in their supply chains. Member States should have a point of contact for small and medium-sized enterprises at national or regional level, which either provides guidance and assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises or directs them to the appropriate bodies for guidance and assistance with regard to cybersecurity related issues. Member States are also encouraged to offer services such as website configuration and logging enabling to microenterprises and small enterprises that lack those capabilities.