As technology becomes more advanced, so do the techniques of cybercriminals looking to steal information, invade your privacy or take down your service altogether. It’s no longer a question of whether your business will come under attack from bad actors, but when.
Firewalls and passwords aren’t enough anymore. A multi-pronged approach to information security is the only thing that gives your enterprise a good chance at avoiding cyberattacks and thwarting them quickly.
Cybersecurity is a term used to describe the processes and network security methods put in place to protect online services, applications, computer systems, devices, and sensitive data from cyberattacks. Those attacks may originate from outside or inside an organization.
There are many different types of cybersecurity threats, but generally speaking, cyberattacks are designed to:
Disrupt, disable, or destroy an organization’s computing infrastructure
Maliciously control a computing environment and/or its devices
Breach system integrity by gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data
Steal sensitive information to create fraudulent transactions
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), there are five functions that make up the cybersecurity framework1:
Identify - Understand which assets (systems, data, services, processes) need protection
Protect - Create and implement safeguards that protect those assets and ensures their delivery
Detect - Develop and implement methods for early identification of cybersecurity incidents
Respond - Develop and implement activities to contain the effects of cybersecurity incidents
Recover - Create and implement activities to restore services and capabilities that have been affected by a cybersecurity incident
To understand how critical cybersecurity is, consider the sheer amount of data that needs protecting. By 2025, it’s estimated that the collective amount of data across all of humanity will reach a staggering 175 zettabytes (175,000,000,000,000,000,000,000).2 That’s an awfully big target for cybercriminals, and it comes with a pretty hefty price tag for the victims.
Projections state that the costs of cybercrime will reach $15.5 trillion by 2025. This is up from just $3 trillion in 2015.2
By 2031, ransomware alone is expected to cost victims approximately $265 billion, with a new ransomware attack being launched on a business or consumer every 2 seconds.2
Global spending on cybersecurity services and products is expected to reach a cumulative $1.75 trillion between 2021 and 2025.2
According to the Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report,3 a single cyberattack (malware, data breach, or ransomware, for example) costs a business $200,000 on average, with many companies going out of business within six months of an attack.
To help stem the coming tidal wave of cybersecurity risk, Google has announced plans to invest over $10 billion in cybersecurity over the next five years, and Microsoft plans to quadruple its cybersecurity investment to $20 billion over the same time frame.
As data and connectivity become more and more ingrained in day-to-day work and the delivery of needed services, organizations will become increasingly vulnerable to cyberthreats. These threats, which aim to steal information or breach critical infrastructure, are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex, rendering existing cybersecurity measures less effective.
Data breaches and cyberattacks come with serious financial, reputational and operational consequences. These consequences make it critical for most organizations to bolster their cybersecurity profile without delay.
For more detail about cybersecurity and how to protect yourself, read more:
The types of cybersecurity threats your organization may face
How to detect and evaluate vulnerabilities that increase risk
Risk mitigation strategies to strengthen your cybersecurity profile
SOURCES:
National Institute of Standards and Technology, The Five Functions, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, 12 May, 2021
Steve Morgan, 2022 Cybersecurity Almanac: 100 Facts, Figures, Predictions and Statistics, Cybercrime Magazine, 19 January, 2022
Hiscox Group, Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report, May 2022
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