If you’ve done everything you can think of to stay protected — patched systems, trained employees, upgraded tools — but the number of threats still keep increasing, you’re not alone.

You’re not behind. You’re not unprepared. But you may be operating on outdated assumptions.

For small and midsize businesses, the real danger isn’t just what attackers are doing—it’s the cybersecurity myths you’ve been told to believe. The ones that seem logical. Safe. Even helpful. But they leave gaps that attackers are counting on. And, if these myths are still shaping your strategy, it’s time to rethink your  model.

Myth 1: We’re too small to be a target.

Reality: The businesses that can least afford a breach are often the ones least protected.

Many small and midsize businesses assume that their size shields them from targeted attacks. But in today’s cyber threat landscape size isn’t a deterrent—it’s a vulnerability. Cybercriminals know that SMBs often lack the internal resources, time, or budget to deploy enterprise-grade protection. That’s precisely why they strike.

This isn’t theoretical. Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report revealed that over 70% of ransomware attacks hit organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees. In Ireland, FraudSMART reported that 68% of SMEs faced cybercrime attempts in just the past year.

The true risk lies in the imbalance. While large enterprises can absorb the impact of a breach, most SMBs cannot. The cost of ransomware recovery, reputational damage, and regulatory fines can be existential.

That’s where CleanINTERNET® levels the playing field.  It brings enterprise-level security to SMBs — without enterprise-level complexity or cost. We combine the largest collection of global threat intelligence with AI-accelerated processing and expert human analysis — blocking all known threats before they reach your network, at wire speed. It’s real-time protection that fits your business, and scales without adding burden.

Myth 2: Our firewall is enough.

Reality: Firewalls only enforce what you already know.

Most businesses have a firewall in place. But here’s the problem: every successful cyberattack you’ve ever read about, happened with a firewall already in place. Firewalls are essential for perimeter control, but they rely on static policies. They aren’t built to evaluate billions of new indicators daily, or to identify zero-day infrastructure as it emerges.

Modern threats bypass firewalls through DNS manipulation, encrypted traffic, credential misuse, or compromised cloud platforms. Meanwhile, intelligence on malicious infrastructure evolves constantly, in near real-time. And static enforcement solutions just can’t keep up.

CleanINTERNET® acts before the firewall. It processes more than 10 billion unique indicators of compromise, updated every 15 minutes, to enforce at wire speed. It recognizes and blocks malicious domains, IPs, URIs, hashes, and the list goes on — that firewalls simply can’t interpret in real-time. This means your firewall no longer has to catch everything — because CleanINTERNET® already stopped it.

Myth 3: Ransomware isn’t really our problem.

Reality: Ransomware targets businesses that can’t afford downtime.

For many SMBs, ransomware seems like something that only hits the headlines—an enterprise issue. But the data tells another story. In 2024, the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) reported a 68% increase in ransomware attacks against European SMBs. And according to the Irish SME Association (ISME), 27% of small Irish businesses faced attempted ransomware attacks last year.

These aren’t opportunistic one-offs. Today’s ransomware ecosystem includes affiliates, automation, and targeted lures that make it cheaper and faster to exploit smaller organizations with weaker defenses. The stakes are high: even with backups, data is often exfiltrated and used for double extortion — and recovery can still cost six figures.

CleanINTERNET® disrupts ransomware campaigns before they reach execution. It blocks access to known command-and-control infrastructure, distribution domains, IP staging zones, and payload delivery systems in real-time. The result? No payloads, no encryption, no payout.

Myth 4: Our spam filter stops phishing.

Reality: Email security stops messages — CleanINTERNET® stops what happens next.

Phishing has evolved. Messages are now more targeted, more convincing, and often contain no obvious malicious payload — just a well-crafted impersonation. In some cases, attackers use compromised vendor accounts to carry out invoice fraud or gain privileged access.

Despite secure email gateways, phishing still works. FraudSMART found that Irish SMEs lost more than €17 million to email scams in just two years.

CleanINTERNET® picks up where email protection leaves off. If a user clicks a link in a deceptive email, CleanINTERNET® can block the outbound connection to the phishing site, login portal, or command server — even if the email was never flagged. It’s the final control that prevents a simple mistake from becoming a breach.

Myth 5: We cannot control third-party risk.

Reality: You may not control your vendors, but you can control how your network interacts with them.

The average SMB relies on dozens of third-party platforms—from accounting software and CRM tools to outsourced IT providers. These relationships are critical to efficiency, but they also introduce new exposure. If a vendor is breached, your systems can be compromised indirectly.

According to PwC’s Cybersecurity Outlook 2025, 48% of Irish organizations now cite third-party risk as a top concern. Yet most SMBs lack the resources to monitor or evaluate their supply chain continuously.

CleanINTERNET® solves this with real-time enforcement. It dynamically blocks communication with known-compromised vendors, hijacked SaaS portals, and malicious third-party infrastructure based on global threat intelligence. You may not control your vendor’s security—but you can stop their breach from becoming your problem.

Myth 6: Compliance is separate from security.

Reality: Real-time enforcement supports both resilience and regulation.

New frameworks like NIS2 and DORA have raised the bar for cybersecurity governance across the EU. But many Irish SMBs are still scrambling to understand what compliance requires in practical terms.

Irish Tech News reported that 76% of IT leaders say their organizations are still unprepared for new mandates. The misconception is that compliance requires a second team or an entirely new stack. In reality, the best compliance control is an active defense.

CleanINTERNET® enforces zero-trust principles and blocks threats in real time, logs every event, and provides the evidence needed to demonstrate compliance—without adding operational complexity.

Myth 7: We’ll worry about incident response once we grow.

Reality: If you don’t have a SOC, you need one that works for you—not just when you grow, but now.

It’s easy to put incident response planning on the back burner, especially when budgets are tight and teams are small. But attackers don’t wait. The longer it takes to detect and contain a breach, the more damage it does—financially, operationally, and reputationally.

According to the Ponemon Institute, the average time to detect and contain a breach remains over 45 days for SMBs. And VM Group data shows that only 28% of Irish SMBs have a formal incident response plan in place.

The challenge isn’t awareness—it’s resourcing. Most SMBs can’t build a 24/7 SOC or hire a team of analysts. But that doesn’t mean you have to go without one.

CleanINTERNET® acts as a virtual SOC—bringing together real-time threat enforcement and expert analysis. It identifies malicious behavior at the edge, blocks known threats before they reach your systems, and escalates only what matters. That means:

• Continuous visibility without alert fatigue
• Real-time, intelligence-driven enforcement
• Expert-driven triage and reporting without internal burden

Incident response doesn’t have to start with a team. It starts with having the right infrastructure in place to stop threats before they escalate—and to respond when it matters most.

Myth 8: Without DLP, we can’t protect our data.

Reality: Most data loss occurs through malicious infrastructure—not misclassified files.

Data loss prevention (DLP) systems are often recommended to protect sensitive information. But for SMBs, they’re typically overkill: complex to manage, expensive to deploy, and prone to false positives.

What’s more, most data exfiltration today doesn’t happen via email attachments or mislabeled documents. It happens through encrypted tunnels, beaconing malware, or unauthorized outbound connections to known exfiltration servers.

CleanINTERNET® intercepts those connections at the edge. By blocking known exfiltration channels—whether via FTP, HTTPS, DNS tunneling, or other techniques—you prevent data loss before it requires classification. The best DLP? Stopping the leak before it starts.

The Bottom Line

This is where the myths end, and real protection begins.

You’ve been told to rely on alerts. To detect what’s already reached you. To react fast. But if you’re constantly reacting, you’re already behind.

At Centripetal, we deliver what security leaders need most: threats stopped before they ever reach your network.

CleanINTERNET® is the world’s most effective proactive network defense—combining the largest collection of global threat intelligence with AI-accelerated processing and expert human analysis. We process more than 10 billion threat indicators at wire speed, blocking attacks in real time, all the time.

It’s threat intelligence, artificial intelligence, and human intelligence—working together at a speed and scale no one else can match.

We stand in the breach so you don’t have to. Always watching. Always working. Always ahead.

At Centripetal, we don’t just detect threats—we stop them.

No responding. Just better protection.

Want to see what this kind of protection looks like in your environment? Schedule time to see how it works.