Most of the activities of life and business today are done on the computers and data and information are sent across through the internet. In such a situation, there is a considerable amount of risks involved in data leakage and pilferage. More importantly, there is the risk of the hacker ‘getting in!’
All these warrants for extreme measures of security in the cyber world. There are lots of laws and regulations imposed on the users of the internet to prevent cyber crimes but that does not mean you or your business should take things lying down. In order to ensure that there is no scope of any cyber fraud or theft, you will need to check your security measure from time to time. This will enable you to:
- Know whether or not it is fully functional and working at its optimal level
- The areas that need further focus and strengthening and
- Make your future security plans accordingly.
Every business, small or large, should take a look at their data handling and management systems and not wait for October to come, the month that marks Cyber Security Awareness Month.
Operations Manager, Data Protection Lead team and others should work in unison to ensure total control and secure data management and handling. This will minimize, though cannot eradicate, cyber threats that most of the small businesses are vulnerable to.
The importance of maintaining cybersecurity
The importance of ensuring cybersecurity to make sure that the company data is protected is immense in this modern business world where everything is done digitally, thanks to the fact that technology is now an integral aspect of any workplace. Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly important for any type of business operation. Now you will see that technology is being used in areas such as:
- Email correspondence
- Financial transactions
- Business communication
- Professional networking and
- In collaborative work documents.
Now as well as in the future, businesses will rely extensively on technology that is indispensable to stay connected to the outside world all times to conduct their work more effectively and efficiently.
However, these lines of communication are often threatened and even compromised and when such a thing happens it is bound to create disruptions that will certainly have a disastrous effect on any business.
Common types of cybersecurity threats
When you surf the internet, you will come across a lot of instances where different companies, large and small, have faced the wrath of cyber attacks right from telecom giants and to a small business. The security failings make the victims see all their sensitive information and details of other persons exposed. All these examples signify the need for businesses to protect their virtual assets and interests from malicious hacks and cyberattacks with the strongest of strong security.
- According to the Cyber Security Breaches Survey, it is found that there are many different types of Cybersecurity threats.
- In addition to that, the report also suggests that more than 43% of the businesses had reported cybersecurity breaches or attacks within a span of 12 months.
The data breaches have caused an immense loss in:
- Website corruption
- Visual assets and even
- Intellectual property.
The most common type of cybersecurity threat is the scammers that impersonate a business and send fraudulent emails, malware and viruses to the clients of the particular business.
Impact on business revenue
Apart from the loss of data, cyber-attacks can also cause an immense loss to the business revenue, which ideally is a backbone-breaking aspect especially for small businesses.
- Systems may get defunct after such attacks requiring a replacement costing a huge sum of money. Even repairs can be costly.
- Apart from that loss of customer database hampers the business operations significantly which once again costs dearly to the small businesses.
For the small businesses, it will be much more like starting their business right again from scratch.
In order to protect businesses from such huge and more often irrecoverable losses, there is a recent implementation of GDPR. According to this, all businesses have to report about any breaches that may have happened in the company to the ICO or Information Commissioner’s Office. This has and will have a significant effect on the businesses as a result. Some of these effects are:
- It will increase the fines dramatically and
- It will also increase the average cost of data breaches even further in the years to come.
However, the most significant effect of a data breach after the introduction of GDPR is that it has empowered the ICO to stop a business from processing data in the future. This will have a greater impact on the business world.
Advanced social engineering strategies
Cybercrime is nothing new and has been around for a long time back, since the age of the telephones!
You may remember that as early as in the 1970s, John Draper created the infamous Blue Box that was used to hack telephone systems. It was then called ‘phone freaking.’
With the passage of time, technology has evolved and more advanced systems like a computer or a mobile phone are now being used for communicating. With it, the methods in which phishing is conducted have also evolved and are now known as ‘Cybercrime.’
Cybercrime now involves:
- Fraudulent attempts to gain information about others
- Exploit the account data associated with making financial transactions
- Accessing emails
- Getting into banking systems and wiping accounts and more.
With the extensive use of Artificial Intelligence, hackers do not even need to be personally involved in such a crime now. It can not only be done remotely but hackers and criminals can even actually automate such attacks now.
Wrapping in security layers
With so much at stake, companies cannot take anything lightly and are therefore focused on wrapping their systems with different layers of security. It is, for this reason, you will find that sites ask a few personal info from you to verify authenticity, whether you visit National debt Relief or any other site as per your requirement. They will not let you proceed unless you provide the details.