Story:
How Likely Your Business is to Face a Cyber Attack

Cybercrime is growing worse by the year. This is because it’s a lucrative industry – worth $1.5 trillion. As such, there are no some countries that base their economy on cybercrime, emboldening criminals with new technology that makes it easier for them to attack businesses. This may leave you wondering if your business will suffer an attack.

Cybersecurity Today

Beta News says cybercriminals often live in other countries so besides being able to remain anonymous, they also aren’t vulnerable. This is why it’s growing to the point that by 2023 Norton Security believes cybercriminals will steal 33 billion records each year – half of them in the United States alone. These threats are expensive, costing about $3.86 million per breach or $148 per record. Experts believe attackers will grow smarter this year thanks to more advanced technology.

6 Types of Cyber-Attacks to Watch out For

Pagely says there are 6 types of attacks you should be on the lookout for:

• Ransomware: A digital type of kidnapping that happens when a hacker manages to encrypt and lock your files. They get this encryption to work by having someone open a malicious file in an email, which then deploys the ransomware on your network. Once this happens any files you open will have a message saying they’re locked, and you must pay for an encryption key via Bitcoin. Typically, organizations in need of quick access to files (e.g. government, medical) are at the most risk. When you’re attacked you must either decide to pay the ransom and suffer from bad publicity or refuse to pay and lose critical files and lots of money.

• The IoT is composed of digitally connected items that previously couldn’t connect to the internet (e.g. appliances, thermostats, cars). While this makes life easier, it also makes your company more vulnerable to an attack since many of these devices have lots of security holes that smart hackers slip through unnoticed. When hundreds of devices are used in a coordinated attack, a lot of chaos and catastrophe will occur. As the number of connected devices in the workplace continues to grow, this attack will grow, and most business owners say the consequences will be catastrophic.

• Social engineering and phishing are old school, but they aren’t going anywhere since they still work because they rely solely on people who don’t change. They’ll remain easily deceived and willing to give up their sensitive information regardless of the measures you put in place. In fact, these attacks are growing more sophisticated. Statistics show that phishing attempts increased by 65% in the last year alone.

• Cracking occurs when a hacker uses a high-powered computer program to systematically enter millions of passwords and hopefully find one so they can crack into your system. Unfortunately, this works because about 35% of people use weak passwords today. As computers become more powerful, cracking will grow easier. This is why your system administrators should be forcing employees to create completely unique passwords.

• Man in the middle attacks occur when an employee does company business on an unsecured wireless network (e.g. the local coffee shop). Hackers look for things like passwords, sensitive emails, and contact information. Although VPN software will help with this, information may still be captured.

• WordPress specific attacks shouldn’t come as a surprise to you since this software powers about 30% of the internet today. These attacks are growing in number because users typically take the software out of the box and install it without making any changes. The software’s third-party plugins are also vulnerable if they aren’t updated on a regular basis. In fact, about 25% of WordPress sites that were hacked were exploited because their plugins were out-of-date. Other sites were hacked because they didn’t use SSL certificates or disable pingbacks.

The Rise of Cybersecurity

The cybersecurity industry is growing in response to cybersecurity threats. By 2022 it’s expected to be a $170 billion industry. As it grows, analysts are moving beyond perimeter defenses towards network monitoring and behavioral analysis. This is because multiple methods are being used to get past perimeter defenses, creating new challenges. With behavioral analysis and network monitoring, we can directly protect the most valuable assets without relying on identifying incoming threats.

As businesses continue to migrate to the cloud, networks will continue to grow. Infrastructure now includes conventional on-premises solutions and multiple cloud solutions. This cloud security is more important than ever today.

How Likely Your Business is to be Attacked

Although many businesses will be attacked in 2019, you may wonder what the likelihood is of your business being attacked. While statistics are important, they don’t apply to everyone. Instead, you should realize that the likelihood of your business being attacked has to do with your own risk factors since your operations, security, technology, and infrastructure are unique. All these things must be taken into consideration to determine what the probability of your business being attacked will be. Any business that engages in high-risk behaviors or collects valuable information is much more likely to be attacked. It’s important to notice such attacks immediately because the longer it goes unnoticed, the more damage it will cause.

Determining the Likelihood of Your Business Being Attacked

To calculate your business’ risk, you should answer these questions:

• Do you have open source threat intelligence or network breach detection systems installed? If so, how accurate are they? If not, you should.

• Do you have a security team that knows what threats are out there? If so, they’ll be more responsive. If not, you should get them some education.

• What is the risk of an internal breach occurring?

The likelihood of a business undergoing a cyber attack is high because network security threats are encountered daily. However, being able to recognize an attack and quickly mobilize to remediate the attack and control the damage are what’s important.