For a 50-person company, cybersecurity means a layered set of protections that cover your endpoints, your email, your network perimeter, your data backups, and your people. It does not mean buying one tool and hoping for the best. The right setup balances real protection against real threats without overbuilding for risks that don’t apply to your size or industry. Here is what that looks like in practice, what most companies at this size are missing, and where the money is well spent versus wasted.

At a glance: A 50-person company needs at minimum endpoint protection, a managed firewall, email filtering, multi-factor authentication, data backups, and employee security training. 46% of all cyber breaches impact businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees, according to the 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report. 95% of cybersecurity breaches trace back to human error, making employee training one of the highest-return investments a company can make. The average cost of a data breach reached $4.88 million globally in 2024, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report. Facet Technologies builds cybersecurity programs for Central Illinois businesses starting with a risk assessment and layering protections based on actual exposure, not a one-size-fits-all checklist.

What Are the Biggest Cybersecurity Threats to a Company With 50 Employees?

The threats facing a 50-person company are the same ones hitting much larger organizations. The difference is that smaller companies tend to have fewer layers of defense, which means each threat is more likely to succeed.

• Phishing. An employee clicks a convincing email, enters credentials on a spoofed login page, and an attacker now has access to your systems. At a 50-person company, one compromised account can reach every shared drive, customer database, and financial system the business operates. Phishing is the most common entry point for cyberattacks on small businesses.
• Ransomware. According to the Sophos State of Ransomware 2025 report, 82% of ransomware attacks in recent years targeted companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. Attackers know that smaller organizations are less likely to have segmented backups and incident response plans in place.
• Business email compromise (BEC). BEC is a type of attack where criminals impersonate a trusted contact, often a CEO, vendor, or attorney, to trick an employee into wiring money or sharing sensitive data. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center consistently ranks BEC among the most financially damaging cybercrimes for businesses of all sizes.
• Credential theft and stolen devices. If your team uses weak passwords or reuses them across accounts, a single breach at an unrelated service can give attackers a way into your network. Lost laptops and phones without proper device management add another layer of risk.

What Cybersecurity Protections Should a 50-Person Company Have?

There is a baseline set of protections that every company at this size should have in place. Think of it as the foundation: skip any of these and you are leaving a gap that attackers will find.

• Endpoint protection. Every device that connects to your network needs protection that goes beyond traditional antivirus. Endpoint detection and response, or EDR, is a security tool that monitors devices continuously and can isolate threats automatically. EDR catches threats that signature-based antivirus misses because it watches for suspicious behavior patterns, not just known virus files. Facet Technologies deploys autonomous endpoint protection that stops threats at a speed and accuracy that manual response cannot match.
• Managed firewall. A firewall is the barrier between your internal network and the internet. A managed firewall means your IT partner handles the configuration, updates, and monitoring so it stays current with emerging threats. At Facet, our firewall program operates as hardware-as-a-service: we own and maintain the equipment, replace it on a regular cycle, and you never face a surprise capital expense for a failing appliance.
• Email security. Since phishing accounts for the majority of successful attacks, your email filtering needs to be more than a basic spam folder. Modern email security scans for spoofed sender addresses, malicious links, weaponized attachments, and impersonation attempts. It integrates directly with your email platform so suspicious messages are caught before they reach your team’s inboxes.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA is a login method that requires two or more forms of verification before granting access, such as a password plus a code from your phone. It is one of the simplest and most effective protections available. If an attacker steals a password, MFA stops them from using it.
• Data backup and recovery. Backups are your safety net when everything else fails. The question is not whether you have backups, but how quickly you can recover from them and whether they are isolated from your production network. Backup isolation is a method of keeping backup copies separated from your main systems so ransomware cannot encrypt them along with everything else. Facet provides instant recovery backups with isolation specifically designed to keep your data recoverable after a ransomware attack.
• Employee security training. According to the World Economic Forum, 95% of cybersecurity breaches are attributed to human error. Your people are your first line of defense and your biggest vulnerability at the same time. Regular phishing simulations and security awareness training turn that risk into a strength. Facet runs ongoing phishing simulation programs that test your team with realistic scenarios and track improvement over time.

When Does a 50-Person Company Need 24/7 Security Monitoring?

If your business handles sensitive data, faces compliance requirements, or cannot afford extended downtime, 24/7 monitoring is not optional. It is the difference between catching an intrusion at 2 a.m. and discovering it Monday morning after the damage is done.

A Security Operations Center, or SOC, is a team of cybersecurity analysts who monitor your network around the clock for suspicious activity. When something triggers an alert, they investigate and respond immediately rather than waiting for your internal team to notice.

For a 50-person company, building an in-house SOC is not realistic. The staffing, tooling, and expertise required would cost more than most companies this size spend on IT altogether. That is where a managed SOC comes in: your IT partner connects your environment to an external SOC that watches your systems 24/7/365.

Facet Technologies partners with an external SOC that provides managed detection and response with an average threat resolution time of nine minutes. For many of our clients in healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services, this is the layer that satisfies both their cyber insurance requirements and their own need to sleep at night.

Not every 50-person company needs this immediately. If you are a professional services firm with minimal sensitive data and low compliance exposure, the baseline protections above may be sufficient for now. But if you handle patient records, payment card data, federal contracts, or proprietary manufacturing processes, 24/7 monitoring should be part of your plan.

What Cybersecurity Mistakes Do Companies This Size Make Most Often?

After 30 years of working with Central Illinois businesses, the most common mistakes fall into a few predictable categories.

• Treating cybersecurity as a one-time purchase. Buying a firewall and antivirus three years ago and assuming you are covered is like getting a physical in 2021 and skipping checkups since then. Threats change. Software needs updates. Licenses expire. Cybersecurity is an ongoing practice, not a product you install once.
• Ignoring employee training. Proton AG’s 2026 SMB Cybersecurity Report found that while 92% of small and midsize businesses have implemented some form of cybersecurity protection, breaches continue to occur due to preventable issues like password sharing, inconsistent policy enforcement, and varying levels of employee awareness. Tools alone are not enough if the people using them do not understand the risks.
• No tested recovery plan. Many companies have backups. Far fewer have tested whether those backups actually work under pressure. If you have never run a recovery drill, you do not know if your backup will save you when it counts.
• Assuming you are too small to target. Attackers are not manually choosing their victims from a list. Most attacks are automated and indiscriminate: they scan for vulnerabilities across thousands of networks at once. A 50-person company with weak credentials and no email filtering is a target whether the attacker knows your name or not. The 2024 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report found that 46% of all breaches impact businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees.
• Skipping dark web monitoring. If your employees’ credentials from a past breach are available on the dark web, attackers can use them to access your systems today. Dark web monitoring checks for compromised credentials associated with your domain and alerts you before those credentials are used against you.

How Much Should a 50-Person Company Spend on Cybersecurity?

There is no universal dollar figure because the right investment depends on your industry, your compliance obligations, and your tolerance for risk. A 50-person healthcare clinic with HIPAA requirements will need to invest more than a 50-person marketing agency.

That said, here is a practical way to think about it. The baseline protections listed above, endpoint protection, managed firewall, email security, MFA, backups, and employee training, should all be included in a managed IT services agreement. When you work with an MSP like Facet Technologies, these protections are part of your monthly investment rather than a separate line item.

Where costs increase is when you add layers: 24/7 SOC monitoring, compliance consulting, advanced dark web monitoring, or dedicated vulnerability assessments. These are not costs every company needs on day one, but they are the protections that move you from “baseline secure” to “audit-ready and insurable.”

The real question is not how much you should spend. It is what would a breach cost. If the answer involves lost customer trust, regulatory fines, or days of downtime that stop your revenue, the investment in prevention looks very different.

How Does Facet Technologies Build Cybersecurity Programs for Companies This Size?

We start with a cybersecurity risk assessment that looks at your actual environment: what you have, what is exposed, and where the gaps are. We do not sell every client the same package because a 50-person manufacturer in East Peoria has different risks than a 50-person accounting firm in downtown Peoria.

From there, we build a security program in layers. Every managed services client gets the baseline: endpoint protection, managed firewall, email filtering, MFA, backups with ransomware isolation, and employee training through phishing simulations. For clients who need more, we add 24/7 SOC monitoring, compliance support for HIPAA, PCI DSS, CMMC, or other frameworks, and regular penetration testing through our third-party audit partners.

Our entire team works from our office on West Lake Avenue in Peoria. When something goes wrong, you are talking to someone who knows your network, your industry, and your business. We conduct quarterly reviews with every client to evaluate the security posture, review any incidents, and plan for what is coming next.

The goal is not to sell you everything at once. It is to build a security program that grows with your business and keeps you ahead of the threats that matter most to your size and industry.