At Cyber Wardens we love artificial intelligence. We use it every day to speed up our work, improve the standard of our writing, stop scam emails and messages from ever reaching our inbox and even to brainstorm new and creative ideas. We want more small business owners, sole traders and employees to feel confident about using AI to help them every day because - let’s face it - AI is not going away.
Late last year, Cyber Wardens surveyed small businesses for our 2025 Small Business Cyber Security Pulse Check Report. Unsurprisingly, you told us AI was a big concern for small business owners and employees.
Key Takeaways
- 41% of businesses feel confident they're protected against emerging threats like AI-driven attacks and ransomware.
- 74% of business owners and staff are worried about rapidly advancing technology posing risks in the next five years.
- 78% of businesses recognise cyber criminals are becoming more sophisticated with AI advancements.
AI is a tool that works for you behind the scenes every day – from digital assistants to online shopping and security systems. It helps businesses like yours to streamline tasks, spot fraud and block threats before damage occurs.
Every new technology – from the printing press to the internet – is a tool that can be used well to improve lives, and misused in ways that could harm others. The most important thing we can do is to learn about it, not ignore it.
That’s why we designed our new Cyber Wardens, Level 2: Safe AI for Business.
An epidemic of cyber crimes and threats
Every day at Cyber Wardens we talk to small business owners and employees like you. We also talk to national security and intelligence people, cyber security experts and major organisations and corporations that you probably deal with everyday.
In the past six weeks there has been a notable increase in both the volume of cyber crime reporting and actual incidents – affecting organisations of all sizes, from major institutions to individual small businesses.
What we know about AI-powered cyber criminals
- They use AI to create convincing phishing emails, create realistic deepfake voices and faces, hijack online sessions and deploy fake chatbots, all targeting businesses' money and data.
- They use AI to play a numbers game to launch scams on a huge scale: the more individuals they can target, the better chances someone will fall for their scam.
- They are often criminal gangs and syndicates using the dark web to offer their services to anyone who will pay, including foreign actors seeking to disrupt other nations’ economic and social stability.
- It’s not just money they steal. It’s intellectual property, information about supply chains and access to critical networks for our national security.
In our new course Safe AI for small business, we demystify the AI benefits for small business and show that while AI-powered scams can be harder to spot, you can learn the non-technical skills and simple steps to protect yourself and your business.
Take the next step in your cyber security journey today by enrolling in Level 2: Safe AI for small businesses.
