Cybersecurity for Montreal small businesses: the 5 most common threats in 2026

In 2023, 16 percent of Canadian businesses were hit by a cybersecurity incident, including 14 percent of small businesses with 10 to 49 employees and 23 percent of medium-sized ones (Statistics Canada, Canadian Survey of Cyber Security and Cybercrime, 2023). The survey counted only incidents that had an impact, so the real figure is higher. If your company is based in Montreal, here are the five most common threats to know and the concrete steps to protect yourself.

Where Canada stands: Canadian businesses spent 11.0 billion dollars on prevention and detection in 2023, and 1.2 billion recovering from incidents, double the 2021 figure. Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Survey of Cyber Security and Cybercrime, 2023.

1. Phishing: the classic way in

Phishing remains one of the most common threats to small businesses in 2025 and 2026. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2026, it is the way in for 9 percent of breaches at small businesses, behind exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities (26 percent) and credential abuse (13 percent). The human element, for its part, is present in 62 percent of all breaches. The reason is simple: it is the path of least resistance. Rather than trying to break through your technical defences, an attacker goes straight at your employees.

What makes the threat particularly serious in 2026 is the heavy use of generative AI to produce convincing emails, free of errors, personalized and hard to tell apart from the real thing. An untrained employee stands a good chance of being caught.

Recommended protection against phishing

How to protect yourself: Regular employee training, phishing simulations, advanced email filtering (Microsoft Defender for Office 365), and multi-factor authentication (MFA) on every account.

2. Ransomware: total paralysis within hours

Ransomware hits small organizations first: according to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2026, among cases where the size of the organization is known, roughly 96 percent of ransomware victims are small businesses. Ransomware encrypts all your files and demands payment to get them back. For a small business, that usually means operations frozen for several days, significant financial losses and damage to your reputation with clients.

Small businesses are prime targets because they have fewer resources dedicated to cybersecurity than large companies, while holding data valuable enough to justify an attack.

Recommended protection against ransomware

How to protect yourself: Regular backups that are tested and stored offline, advanced endpoint protection (EDR/XDR), systematic updates, and network segmentation to limit the spread.

3. Business email compromise (BEC)

BEC fraud is a sophisticated form of phishing where the criminal poses as an executive, a supplier or a partner to trigger a fraudulent transfer or obtain access. In Canada, spear phishing, a fraud that targets businesses only, caused 67.3 million dollars in reported losses in 2024, an average of 107,415 dollars per victimisation, across business reports only (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, 2024 annual statistical report).

This type of attack specifically targets employees with authority to make payments or change banking details. An email that seems to come from the CEO asking for an urgent transfer "outside the usual procedures" is a classic warning sign.

How to defeat BEC fraud

How to protect yourself: Double validation procedures for any transfer or change of banking details, training for the finance team, and a systematic phone verification for any unusual request.

4. Cloud misconfigurations

With the rapid adoption of cloud environments (Microsoft 365, Azure, OneDrive, SharePoint), configuration mistakes have become one of the most frequent causes of data leaks. Files shared publicly by accident, permissions that are too broad or poorly secured administrator accounts can expose sensitive data without any external attack at all.

The problem is often invisible: nobody knows the data is exposed until an incident happens or an audit turns it up.

How to protect yourself: Regular audits of cloud permissions and configurations, conditional access policies, a review of external sharing, and training administrators in Microsoft 365 good practice.

5. Compromised passwords and missing MFA

Billions of username and password combinations circulate on the deep web following the data breaches of recent years. Attackers use automated tools to test those combinations against hundreds of services at once, a technique called credential stuffing. If an employee reuses the same password across services, one leak can compromise several of your company accounts.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is the most effective protection against this kind of attack. Even with a compromised password, the attacker cannot reach the account without the second factor. Yet many small businesses still have not turned MFA on for all their critical accounts.

How to protect yourself: Mandatory MFA on Microsoft 365, email, VPN access and every critical tool. A password manager for the whole team. Suspicious sign-in alerts turned on.

Where to start with no dedicated IT team

If your company has no internal cybersecurity resource, the recommended starting point is an audit of your current environment. That audit gives you a clear picture of your protection level, identifies the priority gaps and defines a realistic action plan within your budget.

The measures with the most impact to implement first are generally:

• Turn on MFA for every Microsoft 365 account.
• Put backups in place that are tested and stored offsite.
• Train employees to recognize phishing.
• Keep every device up to date.

These four measures do not require a large budget but they cut your exposure to the most common threats dramatically.

Frequently asked questions about cybersecurity for Montreal small businesses

What does a cybersecurity incident cost a small business on average?

The average cost of a data breach in Canada reached 7.11 million Canadian dollars in 2026, an all-time high (IBM, Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026). That figure includes large companies, so it does not transfer straight to a small business. For a small organization the bill is dominated by restoration, lost productivity and clients who walk away, and it varies enormously from one case to the next.

Where do you start if you have never invested in cybersecurity?

The four measures with the most impact to implement first: turn on MFA for every Microsoft 365 account, put tested backups stored offsite in place, train employees on phishing and keep every device up to date. Those four actions cover the majority of the most common attack routes.

Is cybersecurity mandatory for small businesses in Quebec?

Quebec’s Law 25 on the protection of personal information imposes obligations on businesses that handle personal data: adequate protection measures, incident reporting and appointing a privacy officer. A small business that suffers a data breach without the required protections is exposed to penalties from the Commission d’acces a l’information (Quebec’s privacy regulator).

OKTO Solutions supports small businesses in Montreal and across Quebec in building cybersecurity suited to their reality. See our cybersecurity services for small business or contact us for a first conversation with no obligation.

To learn more, see Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Microsoft Learn.

Sources: Statistics Canada: Canadian Survey of Cyber Security and Cybercrime, 2023 (statcan.gc.ca) | Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre: 2024 annual statistical report (antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca) | Verizon: Data Breach Investigations Report 2026 (verizon.com) | IBM: Cost of a Data Breach Report 2026 (ibm.com)