… But Increased Spending

While confidence is down, SMBs' investments in security technologies are up. EiQ found that 74 percent of SMBs have bought vulnerability management solutions, nearly double from the 39 percent that were using them two years ago.

Meanwhile, 84 percent have invested in endpoint protection solutions, up from 70 percent in 2015. Ninety-six percent of small and mid-sized businesses use firewalls, up from 71 percent, and 54 percent use SIEM and log management tools, up from 43.5 percent in 2015.