No matter how skilled your small business team, cybersecurity now requires 24/7 monitoring.
So global cybersecurity provider ESET launched a new PROTECT portfolio of software and support services providing affordable options for small and mid-sized businesses.
“With this launch, ESET is bringing effortless cybersecurity-as-a-service to businesses of every size, with twenty-four-seven monitoring, automated threat containment, new AI security features, and real experts behind it – all without the overhead,” said Ryan Grant, Country Manager, U.S. and Canada, at ESET North America.
Learn more about ESET’s new offerings here.
The Illusion of Safety
Whether you run a fintech company in Lansing, Michigan or a website administration agency in Anchorage, Alaska, a 9-to-5 team no longer suffices.
When your team goes home for the day, nefarious actors go to work.
They can use malicious software to encrypt your files or employ automation to test stolen sign-ins attempting to gain access to your site.
They can find backdoors to your systems in preparation for future access or theft of data. They can overwhelm your server with traffic taking down your site or the sites of clients for hours.
How Businesses Become Vulnerable
Suppose you run an information website trusted by the insurance industry.
The site contains hundreds of pages of articles created and maintained by a relatively small editorial and administrative team.
A group of bad actors use a long Labor Day weekend to test a list of pilfered log-in credentials and finally gain access to your site.
Over the next few days and weeks, they rewrite articles and create new ones all optimized for their own purposes and insert hundreds of spam links.
With such a huge site, it takes your small team a while to catch on. And by then, you may face the loss of your credibility with your community.
How AI Increases Risk
The situation becomes worse with the introduction of AI.
AI increases the effectiveness, velocity, and scale of attacks. Agentic AI learns to construct perfect phishing emails to steal credentials.
It locates weaknesses in your security and exploits them. It locates valuable files in your database and steals or encrypts them.
And all of this happens quickly with limited need for human supervision. A cybercriminal can compromise your database while you’re out at lunch. They can steal your most valuable files in the time it takes you and your staff to drive home from work. Or faster!
And the lack of need for human monitoring means criminals could scale attacks to target multiple businesses in a zip code, in a state, across the nation or around the world.
Escalating Threat Sophistication
Industry reports show cyber risks to your business multiplying rapidly thanks to AI. However, the new ESET Protect portfolio offers security to curb that threat at a cost small firms can afford.
The annual Microsoft Digital Defense Report, Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report and a report from the UK National Cyber Security Centre all agree. The sophistication of online threats continues to grow.
AI aids bad actors around the world in a variety of ways.
First, it helps cyber criminals by reducing the time needed to breach a system and steal data. What used to take days now takes just minutes.
Second, it automates the process of finding valuable files in a database. Poking around your system, looking for valuable information used to require patience and skill. Today, cybercriminals can just sit back and let AI do the work. But your data ends up just as gone and your system just as compromised when they finish.
How AI Finds Vulnerabilities in Your Database
AI often finds system vulnerabilities before your system administrator knows they are there or can apply a fix.
Imagine you run a private armed security and investigative service in the Dallas/ Fort Worth area.
You have earned the respect of your clients over the years both for your effectiveness and for your discretion.
Since security defines the very essence of your business, you spare no expense with the finest digital defenses you could find to protect your database.
You pay an administrator good money to keep that system working and to make improvements when necessary.
Unfortunately, a cybercriminal with the latest generation of AI software manages to find a hole in your system your administrator never even knew to plug. Client information, surveillance logs, the results of financial and background checks, vulnerability assessments and more might end up online. Or they might wind up in the hands of the subjects of those investigations or of those wanting to do your client’s harm.
This kind of breach could be enough to shatter your clients’ trust and could even end your business permanently.
As organizations rapidly adopt AI tools and autonomous agents—often without IT oversight—ESET has continued to expand its portfolio to help customers secure AI itself, reducing the security and compliance blind spots created by shadow AI and general AI use in the organization. By bundling cutting-edge AI security solutions directly into the ESET portfolio, these offerings ensure even the smallest businesses can improve their cyber posture while embracing innovation.
How AI Helps Cybercriminals Improve Their Campaigns
The average negative actor might use as many as 15 AI aided techniques to infiltrate your system. But an elite cybercriminal might use as many as 40 or 50 techniques to gain access, reports say.
Even if you manage to provide some level of round-the-clock monitoring for your systems, AI aided cyberattacks keep improving.
How Bad Actors Use Ransomware in Cyberattacks
A super smart AI capable of scouring your system for vulnerabilities, gaining access, then finding and stealing all your most vital files in minutes challenges the most seasoned expert.
But the primary strategy for many AI-enabled criminals today doesn’t even involve stealing your files.
According to the 2026 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 48% of all cyber attacks now favor ransomware.
Imagine you run a small digital payment portal used by online auction sellers and ecommerce sites. These small businesses depend on you to process payments and issue refunds in a timely manner.
A cybercriminal armed with the latest agentic AI can steals credentials, quickly and seamlessly create believable phishing emails, and infiltrate your system imitating normal user behavior.
The same bad actor armed with AI could encrypt your payment portal’s critical operating systems and prevent your company from processing customer payments.
What’s worse, compromise of your customers’ data may trigger severe fines and costly forensic investigations.
As the name ransomware implies, the attacker then demands ransom to release your operating systems and allow you to operate your site again.
Leveling The Playing Field
“Managed detection and response used to be built for big enterprises with big budgets,” said Grant. “But today – with the influx of scalable AI-powered threats and increased AI usage across the workplace – an organization’s threat parameters have expanded rapidly in scale and complexity.”
Enterprise businesses may employ security teams on five continents working in shifts around the clock to ensure their data and systems remain secure.
Fortunately, ESET designed its PROTECT portfolio precisely with small and medium sized business in mind.
The service blends AI automation with cybersecurity expertise to grow and evolve with your business and block and protect against ever more sophisticated threats.
The offering comes in three distinct tiers depending on your business needs.
Three Tiers of Service
The Core offering protects your business’s AI stack including hardware, software, data and applications.
Whether you run a coffee shop in Topeka, Kansas with a digitized CRM system or a self-storage center in White Plains, New York with automated billing, your customer data needs protection.
ESET PROTECT’s Core service secures AI stacks, including hardware, software, data and applications. It also protects against ransomware and phishing and provides comprehensive protection against zero-day security flaws that might open your business to attack.
The Premium tier adds a managed detection and response (MDR) feature so that when the staff of your digital marketing agency or full-service heating company goes home for the night, your company data remains protected 24×7 with threat monitoring, and containment services supervised by ESET security experts.
Wouldn’t you prefer an outsourced service including remote human experts to watch over your system and stop an attack before considerable damage occurs?
Finally, ESET’s Ultimate package is designed for advanced environments and provides access to the company’s cybersecurity experts, known globally for their threat hunting research. When you create the new software for your global sales automation company, ESET’s team finds vulnerabilities before cybercriminals do and fixes problems before an attack.
The entire portfolio is built to support smaller businesses and scale with them as they grow, providing tiered services depending on the level of need.
In Conclusion
No matter how savvy your IT team is, they can’t defend your database around the clock.
In contrast, agentic AI presents stark, round-the-clock challenges.
Whether you own a small burger chain in Saskatchewan, Canada or a web design firm in Snohomish, Washington, your business faces risks.
Fortunately, ESET’s new Protect portfolio combines AI powered security with 24/7 threat monitoring and expert advice in a unique cybersecurity-as-a-service offering. Once only reserved for large enterprise firms the portfolio lifts barriers to advanced cybersecurity.
Three tiers of service allow you to choose the right level of service for your business and your budget.
“This new portfolio reflects our long-term commitment to closing the AI security gap and ensuring that security remains central to AI innovation.” added Grant. “By combining advanced AI capabilities with human oversight, we aim to help businesses adopt AI safely and confidently.”
Learn more about ESET’s new suite of cybersecurity as a service tools today.
