Affiliation:
1. School of Accountancy, Massey University, New Zealand
2. 7 Eyes Cyber Security Consultants, New Zealand
Abstract
Small businesses employ 29% of New Zealand's private sector workforce and account for more than a quarter of its gross domestic product. Thus, a large-scale attack on small businesses could prove to be catastrophic to the economy. This chapter, which is framed by the protection motivation theory, explores 80 small business owners' IT security decision-making via an online survey. The findings revealed that 21% of small businesses were affected by ransomware. Fifty-one percent of the respondents did not have any anti-malware and none of the respondents used data classification, which means all information was regarded as the same. Since they managed to recover their backup information, they did not perceive the threat of ransomware as imminent. In terms of coping appraisal, it is assumed that if the business owner-managers believe that the capability of IT security investment averts threats in their organizations, they will be more inclined to develop an intention to invest in it.
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