Are small businesses in Bakersfield really a target for hackers?

Most small business owners we meet in Bakersfield believe the same thing: "we are too small for anyone to bother with." It feels true. Why would a criminal on the other side of the world care about a bakery, a dental office, or a two truck contractor?

Here is the part that surprises people. You are not too small. You are the target they prefer.

Why small businesses get picked

A large company has a security team, insurance, and lawyers. A small business usually has none of that, and the attacker knows it. Most attacks are not a person choosing you by name. They are automated. A program scans thousands of businesses at once, looking for an open door, and it does not care whether it finds a bank or a flower shop. A shop with an easy way in is worth more to that program than a bank with none.

Small businesses also tend to have the one thing attackers want and cannot resist: money that moves, and nobody watching closely. A fake invoice that quietly changes a bank account number works far better on a busy five person office than on a company with a whole accounts department.

What getting hit actually looks like

It is rarely dramatic. More often it is one of these:

• An email that looks like it is from the owner, asking a staff member to buy gift cards fast.
• A supplier invoice where only the bank details changed, so the payment lands in a stranger's account.
• A locked computer, with a note demanding payment to unlock the files, and no working backup to fall back on.

The cost is not only the money taken. It is the days you spend closed or on the phone with the bank instead of running the business, and the customers who do not come back after their card details leak.

We measured it in Bakersfield

In October 2026 we checked the public setup of 4,406 independent Bakersfield businesses for The Bakersfield Cybersecurity Report. 86% had not published an enforced DMARC policy, the setting that tells mail servers to quarantine or reject fake email sent in a business's name, and only 1 in 17 had published a reject policy. Fewer than 1 in 11 passed five free, basic checks. Being small is not what protects a business; having someone close the easy doors is.

Three things you can do this week

You do not need to become a security expert. You need to close the easy doors.

1. Turn on the second step at sign in for your email. Email is the key to everything else. A password alone is not enough anymore. The second step, a code or a tap on your phone, stops a stolen password from getting in.
2. Check that your backups actually work. A backup you have never restored from is a hope, not a backup. Pick one file, restore it, and open it. If that fails, you have just found a problem worth fixing before you need it.
3. Make one rule about money. Any request to send money or change bank details gets a phone call first, on a number you already have, never a number from the email. This one rule stops most invoice and gift card scams.

Where to start

If you want to know exactly where your business stands, the fastest place to begin is our free check. It looks at what anyone on the internet can already see about you: whether someone can fake your email, what is exposed, and whether your staff passwords have shown up in a public breach. It takes a minute and it costs nothing.

Being small does not make you safe. Closing the easy doors does, and most of them are easier to close than you think.