SMB Security Score — Free 5-Minute Risk Assessment + 30-Day Plan

Q: What is the free SMB security score and what does it produce?

The SMB security score is a free 5-minute assessment that produces four tightly scoped outputs for a small business: (1) a 0–100 score across 47 cybersecurity controls covering identity, endpoint, network, data, and incident-response posture; (2) a top-3 ranked list of the risks doing the most damage to your grade, with each risk mapped to a specific cyber-insurance/audit control; (3) a 30-day action preview listing the highest-leverage remediation moves to raise the score and unblock cyber insurance; and (4) a shareable result card — wired with OG/Twitter meta — that you can post on social or attach to a board / customer-trust packet. The score maps against the public SMB Cyber Risk Index, and the underlying data inputs come from Verizon DBIR and IBM Cost of a Data Breach. It's free, requires no signup, and produces no credit-card prompt; the full Compliance Gap Analysis is the upgraded $99 paid option that automates the same control map against SOC 2 or NIST CSF.

Q: How does the 5-minute flow work, and how is it different from a paid audit?

The 5-minute flow is a 20-question web form against the same 47 controls the public SMB Cyber Risk Index maps — you answer yes/no/unsure on MFA, EDR, immutable backups, privileged-access management, IR plan, vendor risk, and security awareness training. You receive an instantaneous 0–100 score plus top-3 risks and a 30-day action preview, with a thumbnail-style sample preview block visible directly on this page. The paid Security Audit Report at /tools/security-audit goes deeper: it produces an AI-generated audit report with risk-rating per control and a prioritized remediation roadmap, intended for SMBs pursuing SOC 2, HIPAA, or cyber insurance. The free score funnels traffic into the assessment, while the paid audit routes into the Compliance Gap Analysis and the Audit-Ready subscription; both share the same 47-control underlying model, so a higher score here lines up with fewer gaps in the paid audit.

Q: What's the SMB Cyber Risk Index, and how is my score benchmarked?

The SMB Cyber Risk Index is the public SMB benchmark the security score maps against — a 0–100 score derived from the same 47 control families Verizon DBIR 2024, IBM Cost of a Data Breach 2024, Coalition Cyber Claims Report, and National Cyber Security Alliance cite as the controls separating the companies that survive a breach from the ones that file for coverage or close. Bands: 80–100 strong security posture (low risk, insurance-eligible); 60–79 moderate risk (specific gaps to address before applying for insurance); 40–59 significant exposure (prioritized remediation required); 0–39 critical risk (typically uninsurable in standard markets). The score is benchmarked against this range, the top-3 risks are surfaced per band, and the 30-day action preview is calibrated to the SMB cohort you belong to. Underlying inputs: Verizon DBIR (SMB breach patterns), IBM Cost of a Data Breach (breach cost and detection time), Coalition Cyber Claims Report (denial drivers — 40% of denials trace to MFA failures), and the National Cyber Security Alliance (1-in-5 SMBs that close within 6 months of a cyberattack).

CyberStackHub

🛡️ 5-MINUTE SMB CYBER RISK SCORE · UPDATED AUGUST 2026

SMB Security Score: Your Free 5-Minute Cyber Risk Grade + 30-Day Action Plan

"Free cyber risk score for SMBs" is the highest-intent question a small-business owner or IT lead asks the moment a cyber-insurance quote, a procurement questionnaire, or a board update forces the security conversation. The free 5-minute SMB security score produces an instant 0–100 grade across 47 controls (identity, endpoint, network, data, IR), surfaces your top-3 risks, previews a 30-day action plan, and hands you a shareable result card for your board, customer-trust packet, or cyber-insurance application. No signup. No credit card. Mapped to the same 47-control backbone the public SMB Cyber Risk Index cites.

📅 August 21, 2026 📊 47 controls / 0–100 score / top-3 risks / 30-day actions / share-ready OG/Twitter meta 👥 SMB founders + IT leads scoring pre-cyber-insurance or pre-procurement

Score Your 5-Minute SMB Security Grade →

After your score, you can choose Help build the SMB Cyber Risk Index. This is optional: only your industry, size band, score band, and top-three risk fingerprints are retained — never your answers or identity fields.

Open the Full Assessment → Get Audit-Ready — $599/mo →

Why the SMB Security Score Matters

47

Controls assessed across identity, endpoint, network, data, and IR — the same 47 the public SMB Cyber Risk Index cites.

Verizon DBIR 2024

0–100

Score range mapped to insurance-eligibility bands (80+ strong, 60–79 moderate, 40–59 exposed, <40 uninsurable).

CyberStackHub Risk Score Scale

5 min

Average completion time across the 20-question form. Instantaneous scoring — no human review required.

CyberStackHub Demand Signals

OG/Twitter

Shareable result card wired with Open Graph + Twitter meta — drop the result URL into a board update or customer-trust packet.

result-card flow

The 5-minute SMB security score is the funnel-entry surface for the CyberStackHub cyber-risk stack. The free score produces an instant 0–100 grade plus top-3 risks and a 30-day action preview; the paid Compliance Gap Analysis ($99 one-time) automates the same 47-control model against SOC 2 or NIST CSF; the Audit-Ready subscription ($599/mo) adds the SOC 2 / NIST CSF dashboard, evidence automation, and a Corgi cyber-insurance partner CTA. Every higher tier references the same 47-control model and the same public SMB Cyber Risk Index banding — so a higher score here maps directly to fewer gaps in the paid audit, a stronger cyber-insurance application, and a faster SOC 2 / NIST CSF Type I audit.

The 5-Minute Flow

Three steps, twenty questions, one 47-control score. The flow below mirrors the structural template shipped at /soc-2-type1-vs-type2 and /nist-vs-soc2 — pillar cards then a sample-result preview block.

Step 1

20 questions across 47 controls

Answer 20 yes / no / unsure questions against the same 47 controls the SMB Cyber Risk Index cites: identity (MFA, SSO, password), endpoint (EDR, patch cadence), network (segmentation, VPN, DNS filtering), data (backup, encryption, classification), and incident response (IRP runbook, tabletop cadence). The form is the same backbone the SOC 2 and NIST CSF tools audit against — so a high score here aligns with a strong gap-analysis result.

Step 2

Instant 47-control score 0–100 + top-3 risks + 30-day action preview

Receive a 0–100 grade with band-class (Strong / Moderate / Significant / Critical), a top-3 ranked list of the risks doing the most damage to your score (each one mapped to a specific control), and a 30-day action preview of the highest-leverage remediation moves to raise the score — calibrated to the SMB cohort you belong to and benchmarked against the public SMB Cyber Risk Index.

Step 3

Shareable result card with OG/Twitter meta

The result card carries the full meta stack — Open Graph + Twitter Card meta — wired so the share-debugger previews render cleanly when dropped into LinkedIn, X, or a cyber-insurance underwriter email. The result card references your top-3 risks and 30-day action preview and tags the canonical URL. Cyber-insurance / SOC 2 / procurement follow-up all start from the same artifact.

Sample preview — not a live result

62/100 Moderate risk

Score 62/100 — Moderate risk. A representative score for a 25-person SaaS / professional-services SMB with partial security automation. The free score surfaces the top-3 risks, prioritizes a 30-day action plan, and produces a shareable result card. Below is what an SMB sees on a real run — same banding, same artifact, same control mapping.

Top-3 risks (severity-ranked)

Missing MFA on admin accounts — 38% control weight; the largest single contributor to the 82% MFA-failure share in denied cyber-insurance claims (Coalition).
No immutable-backup cadence — 24% weight; gaps the 3-2-1 backup rule (offline + offline + tested restore) and raises ransomware dwell time.
No IRP runbook tested in 90 days — 18% weight; IBM Cost of a Data Breach shows tested IRP cuts breach cost ~$1M vs untested programs.

30-day action preview

Enable hardware-key MFA on every admin / privileged account; enforce on Okta / Entra ID / Google Workspace admin tier.
Configure 3-2-1 immutable backups with monthly restore-test cadence; AWS S3 Object Lock or Veeam immutable repository.
Schedule a tabletop IRP test; document the tabletop in the IRP runbook; swing the next quarterly review in.
Re-grade the SMB security score after remediation; cyber-insurance applications and procurement questionnaires both benefit.

Sample preview — actual top-3 risks and 30-day actions vary by industry, stack, and compliance tier. The full 30-day plan and the underlying remediation roadmap are surfaced in the Compliance Gap Analysis at /tools/compliance-gap-analysis.

Why the SMB Cyber Risk Index

The free 5-minute SMB security score derives its banding from the same public sources the SMB Cyber Risk Index cites — the four reports below, plus the National Cyber Security Alliance. The same inputs the AICPA, the cyber-insurance underwriting community, and the Coalition claims-report ranking all use to define what "insurance-eligible" looks like for an SMB.

Verizon

DBIR 2024 — breach-pattern baseline

The 70.5% SMB-target share, the credential-theft volume behind 80%+ of breaches, and the control set the Score maps against — credential hygiene, MFA, EDR, network segmentation, and IRP tested cadence. verizon.com/dbir.

IBM

Cost of a Data Breach 2024 — IRP-tested delta

The $3.31M SMB breach-cost benchmark, the 280-day detection/containment lifecycle, and the $1M cost delta between IRP-tested and IRP-untested programs. Drives the tested-IRP runbook control in the Score. ibm.com/reports.

Coalition

Cyber Claims Report — MFA-failure baseline

The 40% denial base rate and the 82% MFA-failure share of denied claims — the underlying data signal that informs the top-3 risk ranking when MFA gaps are present. Drives the 38% control-weight on admin-MFA in the preview above. coalitioninc.com.

National Cyber
Security Alliance

1-in-5 SMB closure baseline

The 1-in-5 SMBs that permanently close within 6 months of a cyber-attack — the severity signal that elevates the Score toward "Significant" / "Critical" banding and motivates the 30-day action preview cadence. staysafeonline.org.

The framing. The free 5-minute SMB security score is built for SMB founders and IT leads who need a fast, defensible cyber-risk signal — without paying for an audit engagement, a SOC 2 readiness engagement, or a 6-week gap analysis. The Score carries the same 47-control backbone the public SMB Cyber Risk Index cites, and the same banding the cyber-insurance / SOC 2 / procurement audiences use. Trust runs through the four citations above; the Score is the funnel-entry surface that lets the deeper product (Compliance Gap Analysis, Audit-Ready subscription, Security Audit Report) be evaluated against a known-quantitative baseline.

Score Your SMB — Or Run a Deeper Engagement

The free SMB security score is the funnel-entry surface. The deeper product is the Compliance Gap Analysis ($99 one-time), the Audit-Ready subscription ($599/mo), and the Comprehensive Security Audit (Pro) at /tools/security-audit. The same 47-control model, the same banding — just surfaced in progressively deeper recommendations.

Score, Audit, or Plan Your 30 Days

Start with the free 5-minute SMB security score — then layer the deeper engagements that map the same 47-control model against SOC 2, NIST CSF, HIPAA, or cyber insurance. Same model, same banding, same control mapping up the stack.

Take Free Assessment → Upgrade to Full Assessment — $99 →

Get Audit-Ready — $599/mo → Read the SOC 2 Checklist → Read the SOC 2 Framework Guide → SOC 2 Gap Analysis Tool →

Looking for the deeper hub? See the SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria checklist (CC1–CC9 + Availability) →

Need cyber insurance as part of the plan? Once you have your SMB security score, the next question is usually how the score maps to cyber-insurance underwriting. Get a free 15-min Corgi cyber insurance consultation → — Corgi specializes in SMB cyber policies and uses readiness to lock in eligible coverage.

Sources & Citations

1. Verizon 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). Verizon. SMB breach patterns and the credential-theft volume driving the 47-control backbone of the SMB security score (MFA, EDR, patch cadence, IRP tested, backup cadence). verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/

2. IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024. Ponemon Institute. $3.31M average breach cost for sub-500-employee companies, 207-day detect / 73-day contain lifecycle, and the IRP-tested Δ that drives the tested-IRP control weight in the Score. ibm.com/reports/data-breach

3. Coalition Cyber Claims Report. Coalition. 40% denial base rate and the 82% MFA-failure share of denied claims — the 38% control-weight on admin-MFA in the preview block above. coalitioninc.com

4. National Cyber Security Alliance. 1-in-5 SMBs that permanently close within 6 months of a cyberattack — the severity signal that elevates the Score toward "Significant" / "Critical" banding. staysafeonline.org

5. SMB Cyber Risk Index. CyberStackHub / llms.txt. Public SMB benchmark referenced by the Score: 0–100 banding, 47-control backbone, top-3 risk ranking, 30-day action preview.

6. AICPA Trust Services Criteria (TSC) — 2017 (revised 2022). CC1–CC9 + Availability backbone the SOC 2 Gap Analysis maps against downstream of the free Score.

7. CyberStackHub Demand Signals. "Free cyber risk score smb" identified as a striking-distance query with funnel-entry value to /assess; /tools/security-audit; /tools/compliance-gap-analysis. Driving the new /security-score landing hub.

8. The Score's deeper-stack CTAs. /soc-2-checklist (framework hub) + /soc2-compliance-guide (SMB readiness flow) + /soc2-gap-analysis (gap checklist) + /tools/compliance-gap-analysis (the $99 Compliance Gap Analysis) all live downstream and all reference the same 47-control model.