The "My Cyber Resilient Business" grant scheme reopens on September 2. Micro and small businesses can use this scheme to receive a grant for the cost of acquiring and implementing one or more key cyber resilience measures. This year, the Digital Trust Center (DTC) is making a total of €1,000,000 available to lower the financial threshold. Small businesses in particular experience this threshold when taking basic measures that increase resilience to cyber attacks.
Many small businesses are lagging in their cyber resilience and are not yet taking sufficient basic measures. That a so-called "cyber resilience gap" is emerging between cyber threats and the measures taken by small businesses is confirmed in the Cybersecurity Monitor by CBS and the opinion of the Cyber Security Council. Analysis of the data from the CyberSafe Check for sole traders and SMEs shows that of the top three measures already taken are antivirus software (76%), backups (74%) and recognizing phishing (68%).
If we break down the responses of nearly 10,000 business owners who filled out cyberscan by the sectors in which they operate, we can see differences in the extent to which cybersecurity measures have been taken.
View more data from the CyberSafe Check, with scores by sector for each basic measure.
With practical education, self-scans and sharing stories of experience from entrepreneurs affected by a cyber-attack, the DTC encourages entrepreneurs to get the basics right. Yet this does not encourage every business owner to improve cybersecurity. From the evaluation of the pilot of "My Cyber Resilient Business" in 2023 shows that a financial incentive ensures that small businesses get to work on their cyber resilience and move faster to purchase and implement cyber security measures. Therefore, the DTC is reopening this grant scheme and making a larger grant budget available this time.
The grant can be applied for by independent entrepreneurs and SMEs with up to 50 employees and an annual turnover of up to €10 million.
Eligible measures are those falling into the following categories:
Secure network access/wifi
Password Manager
Two-factor authentication (2FA), two-step verification and multifactor authentication (MFA)
Patch management
Antivirus Software
Set up and test backups
Risk inventory and evaluation (RI&E).
Cyber awareness trainings
The grant is 50% of the cost of acquisition or implementation, up to a maximum of €1,250 per applicant.
The budget will be distributed in order of receipt of applications until the grant budget is exhausted.
In three steps, apply for a My Cyber Resilient Business grant. The first step is to know where your company's cybersecurity is still lacking. With the CyberSafe Check for small and medium enterprises download your own action list (PDF) of cyber resilience measures to take. The second step is to purchase the (eligible) products or services from your action list. The last step consists of applying for the subsidy and uploading the action list and invoice to the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO).
Michel Verhagen, DTC manager: "Entrepreneurs are busy doing business. Cybersecurity is often not at the top of the priority list. It is often wrongly thought that small entrepreneurs are not targets, because the reality is different. We would like to encourage small business owners to take action now and quickly take the most important cyber measures. Because with a few simple actions you can really reduce the chances of becoming the next victim. Let this grant be the final push to take action today."
