No, that is not a typo. Have you read the NIST internal report for small businesses, without any employees?
There are non-employer firms that have no paid employees other than the business owners, and there is also a NIST standard that could help these types of businesses be better protected when it comes to cybersecurity.
The NIST IR 7621 Rev. 2 (Initial Public Draft, May 2025) translates the NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 (CSF) into plain-language guidance for non-employer small businesses, or business owners with no staff. It shows owners how to put together cybersecurity risk management into everyday operations, using checklists, worksheets, and starter templates that require minimal budget or technical depth. The guide maps every recommendation to the six CSF Functions (Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover) and highlights quick wins such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), secure backups, and basic incident-response planning.
For solo small-business owners, cybersecurity should be an important consideration for business survival. A single breach can stop operations, add some costly fines, not to mention loss of trust from customers. This framework suggests starting small, but view the NIST CSF Functions as a living checklist you revisit whenever regulations change and/or your company grows. Begin by inventorying every device, application, data set, and cloud service, rating each by potential impact and mapping the threats and vulnerabilities that matter most. Enforce least-privilege everywhere, remove/disable default admin rights, change factory passwords, and turn on phishing-resistant MFA for every account that offers it. Add a layer of security by automating software updates and maintaining a 3–2–1 backup scheme (3 copies of backup, 2 stored in different types of media, 1 stored offsite), and make sure to test those backups often. Draft a one-page incident-response and recovery worksheet so you know exactly who to call and what to do if a breach or cyber incident hits your business.
The framework also mentions adding additional protection by getting cyber-insurance, managed security services, among other things.
Oftentimes, small businesses do not think of cybersecurity and end up becoming a victim of cyberattacks or a breach. I’ve also seen small businesses with employees not take cybersecurity seriously. There are over 34 million small businesses in the United States, and of those, over 81% are solo small businesses without employees.
Cybersecurity is critical not just for large corporations but also for any type of business. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this and businesses would rather spend money on other things and forget about a cyber budget, or neglect the cyber budget.
Let me know your thoughts on this.
Hope you found this post helpful and informative. Thanks for stopping by!
CyberCasta 
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