**6. Recommendations**

All the software applications used must have integrated protection by design and default. That is an important precautionary measure to avoid incidents of breaches and to mitigate risk vulnerabilities associated with the security of sensitive data thus safeguarding the rights of the data subject. Also, risk impact assessment must be undertaken to evaluate the susceptibility to risks and to take measures to mitigate the risks.

The implementation of a consolidated uniform global level data protection mechanism is an imperative requirement to protect user information collected by small, medium, and large enterprises, and meaningful, robust provisions must be embedded in it to bring prosecutions against the perpetrators.

Within the SME market, decision-makers play an important role in keeping their business safe. With the onset of GDPR, the role of the data controller should allow for better understanding and safekeeping of the types of protection the SME business will use in order to keep their data safe. Having the right technology in place does have its advantages, however, whilst many SMEs still play the game of having "no protection", many still use traditional methods that are getting out of date. With the intelligence of the underworld growing, AI and ML software are becoming highly sought after at a cost to combat these threats. SME organizations are being advised to keep their level of security higher and use the right technology to help. This balance in getting the right IT expertise, coupled with the right costs of products, will inevitably help SMEs protect and secure their data. SMEs will surely benefit from using more intelligent controlled environments with applied machine learning techniques thus this demand will hopefully favor on costs. That said, the human engagement within this cycle is room for improvement, and the need to be trained and awareness raised in the workforce. This still remains a gap that will need to be managed by SMEs to stay ahead of the cyber warfare upon us already!
