*Detection and Minimization of Malware by Implementing AI in SMEs DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108229*

no idea about ML software", "Only just become aware that Defender used machine learning" and some saying, "Never heard about it" and some "wanting to need time to understand the benefits". The survey pointed out the average ransomware attack payout was now \$177,000 according to Gartner 2020. Based on the fact explained, the survey went on to ask SMEs about their strategic planning in adopting ML to implement within business. **Table 1** showed 42% of SMEs were already talking to experts in this field, whilst 16% would rather concentrate on sales and marketing than cyber security, and still debating the perspective of costs.


**Table 1.**

*SMEs thoughts on ML adaptation for cyber security.*

**Figure 6.**

*SMEs knowledge of MLCS in predicting malware.*

**Figure 7.** *SMEs being victims of cyber attacks.*

Interestingly 26% of SMEs had varied strategic plans such as "*Cloud back up*", "*advice taken from Cyber Resilience Centre for Wales*", "*Investing in training to adopt a robust ISMS that will be conform with ISO 27001*", "*Make backups*" and "*Ransomware is something we deal with as with any other business outage*". The survey continued to ask SMEs if they knew MLCS software packages (compared to regular detection software) are trained in detecting a range of malware and can proactively detect, foresee breaches, and predict the types of malwares that might infiltrate the network.

**Figure 6** showed that 53% said "Yes" to the statement above and 47% of SMEs did not have a clue.

The survey then asked the question to SMEs if their business was a victim of cyber-attacks (pre and post-pandemic). **Figure 7** below shows that 20% of SMEs surveyed were victims of cyber-attacks pre-pandemic (2019) and during the pandemic (2020).

This then left 60% of SMEs being victims of cyber-attacks post-pandemic (2021-onwards). One SME victim in the case study said, "*We had not secured our server with the latest updates. We took the server offline and had most of our files available on our computers still so lost a small portion. No customer data held on the server.*" Another SME victim said that "*We employed a Social Media company who sadly clicked an email message which got our Instagram account hacked. We lost 30,000 followers. That's it really, we no longer use them and have learnt while hacking is not nice, it happens and the companies you bring in to help need to be registered to confirm they understand the damages they can cause to small business by not following a simple set of do's & don'ts.*"
