Our world today is ruled by technology and we can’t do without it at all. From booking our flight tickets, to catching up with an old friend, technology plays an important role in it.
However, the same technology may betray you when it’s vulnerable and could lead to loss of essential data. Cyber security, alongside physical commercial security has thus, slowly and steadily, become one of the most important topics in the business industry to be talked about.
How many of your friends in the past few years have been scammed by the phishing mails, phone calls, and in many other ways? Over the past few years, cyber-attacks have gone high in number and more powerful in their nature. So much so that big giants like Target and Home Depot compromised their customer’s credit card information due to an attack. It has indeed become an everyday news for us when someone’s bank account is drained by some criminal resulting them in losing all their money.
The global economy suffers a loss of US $400 billion every year due to cybercrimes which is why it is important that they must be discussed right now. The cyber security is not a subject to be taken lightly any more, be it an individual or a corporation, the times are crucial for everyone.
Here we will discuss the importance of cybersecurity, and ways that you can tackle it.
The Attacks Are Increasing By The Minute
2015 recorded as many as 79 percent of people involved in the 2015 US State of Cybercrime Survey facing some kind of cyber-attack. Out of the reported ones, there are still many which go unnoticed, mostly by the victims, which do more bad than good.
Cybersecurity threats are on the rise, where more than half of the US population is receiving, or is victim, to one of these threats which need to be taken care off. Out of all, only 37 percent of all the organizations in the United States have a proper cyber security cell in place to respond to any incident.
Cybercrime Is Getting Worse With Time
Cybercrime isn’t just about an individual having his computer restart over and over again, anymore. The crimes have gotten worse, with loss of money becoming the most common of them all. The attacks are getting bigger, affecting multiple organizations, sometimes various governments at one time.
The use of private emails by Hillary Clinton just shows how much one needs to be careful about cyber security. However, not getting enough funds for any security campaign has made it a struggle for the Congress to keep the country safe from any attacks.
Wanna Cry, the biggest ransomware of 2017 affected not just governments but countries at large, making it the worst the world has seen. In addition to this, the purpose of hacking has dynamically changed over the years.
Most cyber criminals today are empowered by things other than money. Hackers with a social agenda behind them are targeting politicians and bigger organizations, whereas cyber terrorism is also on the rise. The lack of funds has also made the country unable to protect themselves under any cyber-attack from other nations.
The Economic Implications Of The Attacks Are Too High
The hacking attack on the entertainment giant, Sony, has been one of the biggest and worst cyber-attacks ever seen. The company lost millions of dollars in the same. The UK based company, Talk Talk, also lost about 50 million pounds under heavy cyber-attacks. This also resulted in a drop of 20% in their stock value, along with losing over 10000 customers in the debacle.
These cyber-attacks, thus, have put some major pressure on the global economy with a total amount of $400 billion lost every year. It is indeed essential to make our computers safe and your network safer to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
Our Systems Have Become More Vulnerable
The better the technology gets and the more we use it, the easier it is for a criminal to exploit. The migration of most organizations, from moving all of their crucial data, from dedicated servers, to third-party cloud services, has made the data more vulnerable than ever. It allows them to access all the information from a single point and thus, use it for their own benefit.
Applications like Big Data, which deal with enormous amounts of data are also becoming difficult to address to because of the sheer amount of information that needs to be handled and kept safe. This, and many other applications have made the network all the more vulnerable for us, if not better.
Tackling The Problem
Whilst organizations might be spending a significant amount of money trying to prevent the occurrence of cyber crimes, alone, financial investment might not be enough to tackle such problem.
Instead, there are several different ways that organizations can beat cyber crime. This includes scoping out the risks.
For an organization to really prevent the problem of crime, they need to identify where the cyber threats to their company originate from, and what it is that is actually being targeted. Most criminals are on the look for data that can be used to benefit them financially. This could include hacking information that backs up their beliefs, including evidence that puts them in the right and negatively portraying a company. Foreign governments, however, are more likely to want intellectual property or commercially valuable data that can be passed over to companies in their country.
In order to tackle the problem in this situation, it is important to prioritise data according to the data which criminals want to steal. Putting a defence around systems and data is a matter of priorities according to how critical they are. If a breach were to occur, then it is best to have a good enough detection to identify it and quickly take the corrective action.
It is always best to select the right person in an organization to be in charge of tackling cyber security. Whoever is chosen to take the lead must identify the key actions properly and clearly discuss the actions with executive colleagues and ensure that the actions are being executed.
When it comes to cyber security, employees are potentially a biggest vulnerability for a company. Organizations should therefore further educate their staff to make sure that all employees are completely aware of cyber security risks such as phishing emails and the social engineering that takes place. The leaders of taking action of cyber security must properly communicate the security plan of action, and explain why it is central to the success of a business.
Tackling the problem of cyber crime doesn’t end there. Organizations need to continually reassess their position, regularly investing money and time into assessing the cyber threats, practises and systems. Many companies rely on the integrity of their capabilities digitally to maintain their reputation and the way that they operate.
The above reasons indeed point towards the absolute necessity of talking about cyber security. The topic of cyber crime needs to be a focal point of conversation due to the huge amount of damage it has done. There are a variety of different security measures that can be taken to avoid such threats.
This article was written by Simon Parker. Simon Parker has over 70 years of shared experience with Minerva Security, dealing with commercial business security and fire alarm systems.