Mitigating Malware Threats at Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Organisation: A Review and Framework

Malware threat poses consequences, damage, and impact to businesses, resulting in financial losses, operation interruption and reputation damage. The cybercriminal takes advantage of organisations that are not protected by using malware to penetrate the organisation's system or services. This can lead to data breaches, intrusion attacks, confidential data losses or ransomware attacks that completely cease business operations. SMEs also need to be prepared against malware attack since the business is part of the supply chain ecosystem, and the operation is highly dependent on IT technology which can also be exposed to cyber threats. This paper aims to develop a new framework for addressing malware threats in strategic ways for the SME's organisation to immediately access the risk situation and plan proper contingency and remedial action.