SMEs are struggling to keep up in an ever-evolving threat landscape, new research has found, as half (49%) say they don’t have enough resources or staff to protect themselves against emerging threats.

This is according to a survey of 612 IT decision-makers by JumpCloud, which also found that half (49%) of IT teams at SMEs faced layoffs in the past six months, despite worries over cyber skills shortages.

Further, nearly a third (28%) reported that they export even more layoffs within the next six months, despite growing cyber concerns.

About seven in ten (71%) of SME respondents said that cuts in their security budgets would only increase organisational risks, as nearly half (45%) have been victim of a cyber-attack in the first six months of the year.

Of those that faced an attack, nearly a third (28%) have faced two, 17% have faced three, and 5% have experienced more than three.

Nearly two-thirds (60%) said that they consider security their biggest IT challenge, which makes layoffs and budgetary cuts all the more troubling.

Half (50%) of SMEs are more concerned now about security than they were six months ago. Emerging technologies, such as AI, hold some of the blame, as 61% say their organisations are unable to keep apace with AI-enabled threats.

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Further, IT sprawl – the decentralisation of IT tools and systems – have created issues surrounding shadow IT, which is unknown or unregistered IT systems, which create further liabilities. 84% of SMEs are concerned about shadow IT, which makes sense as JumpCloud discovered that 37% of the breaches SMEs experienced in this year were caused by shadow IT.

The problem only compounds as IT architectures diversify: over a quarter of employees (28%) need 11 or more tools to manage their work, and 17% has to manage 10 or more passwords.

This increases the likelihood of phishing, which was the top attack vector SMEs experienced so far this year.