Cybersecurity is a hot topic these days, for both businesses and consumers alike. If you're a small business owner and think you're safe from cyberattacks, think again.

Today's highly-connected, digital economy makes anyone who has access to sensitive digital information a target for cybercriminals. It's information like credit cards, social security numbers, and addresses that make you a prime target, not the size of your business.

"Small businesses are attractive targets for potential hackers as they often have less security than larger organizations," said Heather Paunet, VP Products at Kerio. A recent infographic by Towergate Insurance confirmed this, saying that 97% of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) neglected to prioritize security improvement for future business growth.

One way to protect your offline business assets is with a network security hardware appliance. They're perfect for SMBs as they're an affordable and easy way to create a secure network and protect your business from viruses, malware, cyberattacks, and more.

What is a network security hardware appliance?

Think of them as an all-in-one security gate that replaces your network firewall, router, and VPN (virtual private network) devices. As the entry point into your computer network, a hardware appliance provides you with real-time anti-virus protection, intrusion detection and prevention, and content filtering. That means you'll find out precisely if and when any cybercriminal tries to access your network, or attack it with scripts, trojans, worms, and other malware on infected websites.

How can it help your business?

IT pros call network appliances a "unified threat management solution," and they offer several benefits, including:

1. Always-on high-speed access for your most important work. Their load balancing capabilities can grant high-speed access for your most important traffic types. You'll ensure that your video conferences are always smooth and buffer-free, and that your financial transactions have priority over employee emails. Appliances can monitor link availability in real-time, and automatically disables or re-enables links to ensure continuous access for your network. You decide what gets priority and what can wait, while the appliance handles the work for you.

2. Increase employee productivity. Web filters let you set up traffic policies to limit visits to specific URLs, restrict websites with specific content types, and even limit access at specific times of day. For example you could let employees on to social networking sites only at prescribed times, or only give access to video sharing sites to certain teams as they may need access for their work.

3. Reduce legal exposure for your business. A large number of IT pros (77% in this study alone) say that employees are the single weakest link in their security infrastructure. You can reduce this number and limit your legal exposure by blocking peer-to-peer sharing networks, websites known to have malware, viruses, and those that engage in phishing or identity theft.

4. Protect all of your employees in all locations. Just because you're an small business doesn't mean you don't have employees in multiple locations like brand offices, trade shows, and customer visits. A good network appliance like one from Kerio's Control hardware appliance range gives you the flexibility to offer employees a virtual private network (VPN) so they can access your network securely and easily.

5. Monitor activity in a centralized dashboard. Whether it's configuration and administration of your appliances rules and policies, or you simply want to see a report of employee Internet activity, choose a network appliance with a centralized dashboard.

Your business deserves to stay secure

There are a lot of security options out there for SMBs, everything from a credit card processor that will protect your customers' financial data to document shredding companies that will handle all of your hard copies. For many SMBs, all of these costs can add up to tens of thousands of dollars each month, often putting it out of reach.

This is why a network hardware appliance like Kerio's Control NG100 is a good option for SMBs. It's an all-in-one security solution with powerful capabilities designed to protect your business for a fraction of the cost.