**5. Conclusion**

Any organization, regardless of the size, could be susceptible to malware threats and risk becoming victims of cybercrime, unless proper defense mechanisms are put in place. The failure to do so will pose threats to personal privacy and national security. The threats posed by malware are not a new phenomenon for large organizations in comparison to that SMEs. Also, large companies are equipped with resources both in terms of financial and technical capabilities, with policy defense mechanisms in place, whereas SMEs have limited resources, face budget constraints, and often lack in-house technical skills. That makes SMEs an attractive target for cyber-criminals, and breaches of personal data will have immediate consequences on the organizations and will impact the company finances, corporate image, and trustworthiness of the organization. Therefore, the onus is on the large organization to support SMEs with the provision of technical and policy know-how to protect SMEs from malware attacks.

The overarching focus must be to understand the different variants of malware, act on them promptly, manage the impact of the data breaches ensure the security of personal data, avoid recurrence by adherence to guidelines and regulations set out in the GDPR, to protect the interests of the data subjects, employees, the organization, and not forgetting the impact of bad publicity on the organization itself regardless of the size or the brand name of the enterprise.

Whilst the research is strong on the benefits of emerging technologies such as AI and ML in the detection of malware and intelligent cyber-attacks, MLCS software packages do take on an important role in the SME ecosystem in combatting these threats. Collaboration between technology, organization, and the understanding of
