In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, SIRKit is featured as one of the Top Cybersecurity Agencies in Canada. Check out their profile!
What are Cybersecurity Threats, and Why is IT Security Needed?
Cybersecurity is a commonly used term in the Information Technology industry. Cybersecurity refers to securing systems and data, such as computers and software, against attacks. There are several reasons why cybersecurity is important.
Every organization is a target. The first targets? Organizations without cybersecurity. This is because they are the easiest to breach. It is vital to stay ahead of the curve to prevent breaches. Often, hackers run automated programs to breach vulnerable systems to gain access to sensitive information that could include company trade secrets, or personal data, such as credit cards or healthcare information. The number of active threats produced daily is staggering. Did you know that there are 230,000 new malware strains produced per day?
What is the Importance of Cybersecurity?
Without proper information security, organizations are vulnerable. This includes malware such as ransomware and viruses that can lead to business outages or financial loss. Assuming that your organization’s data security is not at risk is a negligent mistake. Every organization is a target.
Did you know that 21% of the overall Canadian business population reported cybersecurity incidents in 2019? Or that Canadian small businesses suffering a breach were down for an average of 59 hours at the cost of $1.1 million in 2018 (GamTech)?
Here are some more cybersecurity statistics:
- Cyber-attacks occur every 14 seconds (Varonis).
- There is one ransomware victim every 10 seconds (Infosecurity magazine).
- Cybercrime will cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025 (Forbes).
- Data breaches cost, on average, $3.86 million USD (Varonis).
Most cybersecurity incidents lead to outages. In fact, 60% of companies that get breached do not recover. Each day that an outage occurs is lost revenue. Would your business be able to recover after being down for a week? A month? Longer? It’s best to have cybersecurity protocols in place to prevent this from happening.
Another critical part of being prepared is cybersecurity insurance–a plan that will cover you in the case of a breach. However, since the number of incidents is growing, some insurance companies have instituted minimum security systems requirements for coverage.
These minimum requirements include:
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
- Regular phishing testing
- A strong password policy
- Local or offsite backups
- Next-Gen Firewalls (NGFs)
- Monitored endpoint protection
- Regular/scheduled updates
Another reason to have cybersecurity policies in place is for privacy reasons. Organizations are responsible for protecting confidential information about their clients and their team. If a private organization suffers a breach of personally identifiable information (PII), it must be reported to the government.
Finally, we need to fight back against cybersecurity breaches to help lower the volume of attacks. If it becomes too easy, more cybercriminals will find it appealing. If you end up paying a ransom, you fund their activities and incentivize them to continue.
Did you know the average organization ransom in 2020 was over $110,000? That would undoubtedly incentivize someone to continue committing cyber extortion. Overall, we need to work together on our cybersecurity measures to combat this issue.
What Does Cybersecurity Help Protect?
Cybersecurity professionals help protect your livelihood and everyone in the organization. Users are often the targets of an attack. Having strong cybersecurity will help protect your organization, your staff, your files, your devices, and more.
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What are the Top Five Benefits of Cybersecurity Awareness?
There are innumerable benefits to using cybersecurity. However, we would say that the top five are:
1. Business protection
The most crucial benefit of cybersecurity is protecting your business against external threats. Protection can be comprehensive. Typically, cybersecurity protection reduces the risk of ransomware attacks, malware attacks, downtime, security breaches, and more.
2. Personal information protection
Personal information is often the target of an attack. Once a malicious actor has access to personal information, such as your social security or bank account number, they can either use it, release it, ransom it, or sell it on the Dark Web.
3. Employee/workload protection
Users are usually the targets of cybersecurity attacks. Proper cybersecurity can protect your employees from cyber threats–such as phishing or identity theft.
4. Revenue/operational protection
Cybersecurity can prevent your systems from being targeted by an attack that would otherwise shut down your operations. Proper cybersecurity can prevent downtime caused by malicious actors, therefore directly impacting an organization’s bottom line.
5. Quick recovery in case of a breach
If your business is breached, your IT company can handle it and get you back up and running. Cybersecurity includes having proper onsite/offsite backups, which help provide data protection.
Why is it Important to Prevent Cyber-Attacks?
The biggest reason is that cyber attacks can directly affect your bottom line. There are endless vulnerabilities out there that can be exploited. A hacker can target an organization and shut down its operations, leading to revenue loss. Data breaches where customer data, or Personally Identifiable Information (PII), is leaked can be a public relations nightmare. Remember Equifax? As mentioned above, if PII is leaked, it must be reported to the Canadian government.
What is the best way to protect your identity online?
There are several different ways to utilize risk management and protect your identity online. Our top tips are:
- Use strong passwords that leverage passphrasing with a minimum length of 12 characters. We wrote a blog about strong passwords–check that out here.
- Use MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) to lock down all your accounts. Even if your password is exposed, MFA can protect you from unauthorized access.
- Pay attention to whether a site is encrypted or not. Look for the security lock symbol in your URL bar and check for HTTPS in the URL.
- Install monitored endpoint protection–software that protects against malware, viruses, and ransomware.
- Pay attention to your emails, and avoid phishing scams–more on how to spot a phishing email here.
- Use a VPN for network security to encrypt your communication.
- Don’t share or reuse your passwords for different apps or services
- Lock your smartphone or other mobile devices when you are away.
- Utilize free credit reports to spot anything fishy right away.
- Only purchase from reputable websites that use encryption (as stated above)
- Assume everything is hostile until proven otherwise
What are the Challenges that Cybersecurity Protection Faces?
Cybersecurity faces several challenges, from end-user behavior to data breaches. However, the top ten challenges are:
- Ransomware attacks
- IoT (Internet of Things) attacks
- Cloud attacks
- Phishing attacks
- Blockchain and cryptocurrency attacks
- Software vulnerabilities
- Machine learning/AI attacks
- BYOD Policies
- Insider attacks
- Outdated hardware