A Small Business With No Working Website, Felled by a Cyberattack

Fraudsters ran stolen bank cards through the firm’s payment system, leading to $27,000 in reversal charges; ‘I can’t bear to look at the costs’

Small businesses are increasingly battling costly cyberattacks. Sometimes the pain is enough to put them out of business.

In January, cyber thieves ran roughly 100,000 stolen card numbers through the payment system of Innovative Higher Ed Consulting Inc., a two-person startup in New York. Soon after, Bank of America Merchant Services, the startup’s payment processor, sent a $27,000 bill for reversing the charges.

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