Flow Chart:

To start the flow chart, 100 randomly selected businesses with under 100 employees from the United States and Europe. 50 businesses will be from Europe, and the other 50 will be from the United States.

After gathering the sample size for the study, managers and employees involved with the businesses’ technology will take the questionnaire issued by Survey Sparrow.

When the participants finish taking the questionnaire, the results will be collected and evaluated using analysis methods, including ANOVA and Cronbach Alpha.

When the analysis method validates the survey’s results, the study can identify common vulnerabilities for small businesses.

Finally, if the questionnaire helped identify common vulnerabilities among the participating small businesses, the study can generate a statement that can be applied to all small businesses to prevent future cyber-attacks. However, if the study does not provide help to identify common vulnerabilities for small businesses, then the study can report the variety of responses that were found in the results of the survey.

Null Hypothesis:

“Small businesses have common vulnerabilities that can be identified to prevent future cyber-attacks.”

Alternative Hypothesis:

“Small businesses are not aware they are primary targets in cyber-attacks due to the lack of cyber-security knowledge amongst employees and network infrastructure.”

Proposal Outline:

            Introduction:

• Brief description of the current state of cyber-attacks taking place among small businesses around the world.
• Include information to provide background knowledge about cyber-attacks that are taking place among small businesses.
• Discuss the research proposal aims to identify a correlation among small companies that have been breached in the past.
• Mention the use of a non-experimental design to engage with a small business who have under 100 employees.
• Discuss the void of previous and related research that this study will fill.

         The Trend of Network Data Breaches (Literature Review):

• Make a brief statement mentioning that if large corporations have been attacked in the past, what makes small businesses a better and easier target to take advantage of to gain revenue from stolen information(Chen, 2016, p.5).
• Continue to discuss other relevant research that engages people’s cybersecurity awareness(Alharbi & Tassaddiq, 2021).
• Network Pen testing and Vulnerability assessments evaluate the measures a business should take to secure a network(Mamilla, 2021).
• The other synthesis was a study that evaluated 335 businesses to determine a correlation between the companies’ characteristics and cyber-attack security (Udofot & Topchyan, 2020).

            Methodology:

•  The sample size is 100 local businesses with under 100 employees. Half of the businesses will be randomly selected from the United States and the other half from Europe to gain diverse perspectives.
• Survey Sparrow will issue my questionnaire to the selected businesses. In the appendix section, I incorporate a demographic template question and an open-ended question so my peers can see what the questions will look like in my questionnaire.
•  The questionnaire that will be issued has 35 questions that will challenge the participants’ knowledge of various aspects of cyber-security, including firewalls, anti-virus, Penetration Testing, and browser security. Each section will have an opened-ended question at the end to gain an in-depth perspective of the participant.
• Discuss the use of Likert scales, and the results from the survey will be validated using ANOVA (Kim, 2017).
• Discuss Cronbach’s alpha to test the internal consistency of the survey’s reliability.
• Inferential Statistical analysis with a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods is discussed.

            Discussion:

• I explain why the research uses the chosen methods to pursue the research. For example, I explained why I used the sample size and analysis methods to validate my results. Throughout my discussion, I discuss the strengths and weaknesses of every aspect of my research ranging from the sample size, the questionnaire, methods of analysis, and suggestions for future related studies.
• I reiterate the idea to my audience that finding out the common vulnerabilities in cyber-attacks among small businesses is vital for our local businesses’ future.
• Explain my proposal will address the void and gray areas that other studies have suggested performing for future studies.
• Explain the study could support the possibility of implementing basic cyber-security courses as a core class for colleges and people who work at small businesses that lack cyber-security knowledge.

 Resources:

Alharbi, F. S. (2020). Dealing with data breaches amidst changes in technology. International Journal of Computer Science and Security. 14(3), 108 – 114.

Alharbi, T., & Tassaddiq, A. (2021, May 10). Assessment of cybersecurity awareness among students of Majmaah University. Big Data and Cognitive Computing. https://doi.org/10.3390/bdcc5020023

Chen, J. (2016). Cyber security: Bull’s-eye on small businesses. Journal of International Business and Law, 16(1), Article 10.

Kim, T. K. (2017). Understanding one-way ANOVA using conceptual figures. Korean Journal of Anesthesiology, 70(1), 22 -26. https://doi.org/10.4097/kjae.2017.70.1.22

Mamilla, S. R. (2021, May). A study of penetration testing processes and tools. CSUSB ScholarWorks.

Udofot, M., & Topchyan, R. (2020). Factors related to small business cyber-attack protection in the United States. International Journal of Cyber-Security and Digital Forensics, 9(1), 12-25.