Cybersecurity Ventures predicts cybercrime will cost the world in excess of $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015 and 58% of cyber attack victims were small businesses.
The assumption nowadays for small or medium size business owners, is that they’re in the clear and that cyber criminals are after the big fish. The truth of the matter is that cyber criminals are eager to find a weak point to penetrate the system and as such smaller businesses are often a gateway into their bigger counterparts.
If your business has a relationship with a larger firm, cyber criminals could see you as the potential gateway into a more lucrative organization. Therefore, making your business the access point. Consider the following, if your business was at the center of a breach, this would greatly impact reputation for the companies involved not to mention the livelihood of many employees.
Cyber criminals are eager to get their hands on valuable information that they can sell on the black market, whether organizational or personal.
Some of the methods used to penetrate small and medium businesses are: Ransomware and Spear-phishing which we will explore furthermore in this article.
The best way to stop cybercrime is by evaluate if the proper measures are put in place. Organizations should prepare by knowing which threats may impact their systems, employees, and clients they deal with or customers they provide services to.
One way to prevent cyber criminals is to have the proper equipment to manage the biggest risks and, if none are present or currently enforced then finding an external firm that can provide this service should be a top priority.
Cyber Security firms can provide you with the equipment necessary and evaluate your entire ecosystem to find the vulnerabilities by performing a penetration test and as such they will also provide you with a vulnerability assessment.
Penetration testing, also called pen testing or ethical hacking, is the practice of testing a computer system, network or web application to find security vulnerabilities that an attacker could exploit.
A vulnerability assessment is the process of defining, identifying, classifying and prioritizing vulnerabilities in computer systems, applications and network infrastructures and providing the organization doing the assessment with the necessary knowledge, awareness and risk background to understand the threats to its environment and react appropriately.
The cybersecurity research body suggests that ransomware damage costs will rise to $11.5 billion in 2019. Mobile malware, banking malware, and ransomware are the primary threats to expect in 2019 according to Fortinet.
They don’t play by the rules.
A ransomware attach in simple terms is when a cyber criminal installs malware in your network that prevents you from accessing your data or system unless a specific amount of money is paid within the timeframe they indicate. The way they do this is by encrypting you system with a key that locks you out and unless you pay the funds on time, the key may expire and your files will be lost for good. We should also mention that paying the funds on time doesn’t ensure that your files will be kept intact and not stolen.
A ransomware attack could potentially shut down a small business, even permanently, if no segregated back-up of data exists.
Since the impact of ransomware attacks can be devastating for many businesses, many will choose to simply pay the ransom as they cannot afford any down time and haven’t taken adequate precautions. It goes without saying, It is of high importance to have a back-up of all your data.
Phishing is the fraudulent attempt to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.
Spear-Phishing is the act of sending and emails to specific and well-researched targets while purporting to be a trusted sender. The aim is to either infect devices with malware or convince victims to hand over information or money.
Let get into more details, say you receive and email from your colleague, the message looks entirely legitimate in terms of format, fonts, company logo and has a very tailored message, you’re most likely to trust the source and provide the information that is requested. This is in fact the way email spoofing scams work AKA (Spear-phishing). The criminal targets a specific organization or employee to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information, funds or computer system. This in turn is what we call BEC which is short for Business Email Compromise.
A BEC attack is when a cyber criminal poses as a trusted entity, often a client or vendor or business partner in order to facilitate the transfer of fund or information that would grant them access to the inner workings of an organization and their clients. This is one of the ways a small to medium sized business can be used to infiltrate larger businesses or accounts within larger organizations. What’s the takeaway? One undetected vulnerability is enough to jeopardize your business, and anyone associated within that path.
There exists a mix of solutions focused on prevention and detection. By enforcing them you greatly reduce the risk of cyber criminals infiltrating your system. Of equal importance however is monitoring and detecting measures and to do this you’ll need a firm that can easily identify vulnerabilities in your system, detect and deal with intruders before they’re able to make away with client information, material business information and/or funds.
A cyber security firm can also be hired to teach your employees the importance of cyber security. Hackers often target employees, third party partners, seniors leaders through phishing emails and other manipulation tactics. If you’re unable to provide this essential task, you should consider hiring a cyber security firm that can teach them how to detect and prevent unauthorized access.
While it should not be the go do substitute for adequate precaution, you should consider getting CS Insurance. If you can properly demonstrate that your business had reasonable cyber security controls and prevention measures in place, then may collect on the claim. Please refer to your Cyber security contract for more details.
In today’s world, business owners cannot afford to underestimate the importance of protecting their livelihood from cyber criminals. Bear in mind you are responsible for not just yourself but everyone you employ and not to mention your clients and customers. Therefore, it is in your best interest to practice your due diligence in order to prevent any cyber criminal from infiltrating your business which can hinder your effectiveness to operate.
We want to thank you for taking the time to read this article and we hope that you remain vigilant in your day to day operation.
If you have any questions regarding cyber security or would like to find out how to best protect yourself, please don’t hesitate to contact us Via email or fill a form on our site and it would be a great pleasure to get in contact with you.
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