Cyber security can, nonetheless, minimize your exposure. This link explains some ways of reducing risk in organizations.
Factors like the enhancement of cloud storage and social media growth have left many exposed to cyber attacks. This makes cyber security more important than ever. Sensitive information, like banking details and passwords, can now be stored on the cloud , increasing their risk of theft. You may, therefore, want to consider cyber security.
Research also revealed a sharp increase in information breaches, including financial information, health records, trade secrets, personal data, and intellectual property.
Cyber attacks often make online platforms, like websites, unpleasant or inaccessible. That could result in a bad reputation, which might be difficult to undo. Cyber security is, hence, important for the protection of your platform from such risks.
It could also help protect customers from potential hackers. Computer viruses can spread like wildfire. All things considered, the major types of cyber attacks can be divided into four broad sections. Malware is known better by their colloquial name — computer viruses. Computer viruses and associated malware are essentially programs or files that enter your computer from a questionable or untrustworthy source, and then replicate multiple times in your computer.
Depending on the type of malware, these replicated files can be harmless, cover a significant amount of space in your computer, collect your data, and send your personal information back to the source.
Adware is a type of malware. A website downloads such files onto your computer that continuously intervene in your daily usage of the computer with ads of a particular brand or brands. At its worst, the adware can significantly impede your daily activities. Spyware is a type of malware in which a file that gets downloaded onto your computer can access all the tasks you perform on it.
Some types of spyware can even allow a user to control your computer remotely. Trojan Horses are generally files that will disguise as another type of file and activate replication once you open them. These are among the most prevalent types of malware. It is essential to keep your computer protected from malware.
The easiest way to do so is to have antivirus software or subscription. Once you have such a subscription, it is also essential to keep your antivirus updated, since new viruses and malware are made every day. An outdated antivirus software can fail to catch new types of malware. It is also important to run your computer through a complete antivirus scan every few weeks, to weed out any viruses that might have remained undetected, and to free up space on your device.
Identity theft is a type of cyber attack that has only been growing in prevalence over the past few years. In an identity theft, someone steals your identity, pretending to either cause harm to you or steal personal information. Identity theft can occur in several different ways. Anyone who knows the password to any of your accounts can log into that account and procure personal data.
This includes public PCs from which you might have forgotten to log out after you had finished working. Another frequent way of identity theft is through phishing. In phishing, you receive an email from an unknown and questionable ID, asking you to transfer money for your account details. Phishing scams can be in the form of emails from a bank, from an individual, or a lottery company.
Similar to phishing are fake emails, in which a legitimate-looking email procures from you your personal information such as government ID number, password, bank PIN, etc. There are several ways in which you can save yourself from identity theft. California was the first state to regulate data breach disclosures in , requiring persons or businesses to notify those affected "without reasonable delay" and "immediately following discovery".
This has driven standards boards like the National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST to release frameworks to help organizations understand their security risks, improve cybersecurity measures, and prevent cyber attacks. Information theft is the most expensive and fastest-growing segment of cybercrime.
Largely driven by the increasing exposure of identity information to the web via cloud services. But it's not the only target.
Industrial controls that manage power grids and other infrastructure can be disrupted or destroyed. And identity theft isn't the only goal, cyber attacks may aim to compromise data integrity destroy or change data to breed distrust in an organization or government.
Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated, changing what they target, how they affect organizations and their methods of attack for different security systems.
Social engineering remains the easiest form of cyber attack with ransomware, phishing, and spyware being the easiest form of entry. Third-party and fourth-party vendors who process your data and have poor cybersecurity practices are another common attack vector , making vendor risk management and third-party risk management all the more important. Information risk management has never been more important. Data breaches can involve financial information like credit card numbers or bank account details, protected health information PHI , personally identifiable information PII , trade secrets, intellectual property and other targets of industrial espionage.
Other terms for data breaches include unintentional information disclosure, data leak, cloud leak , information leakage or a data spill. All businesses, regardless of the size, must ensure all staff understand cybersecurity threats and how to mitigate them. This should include regular training and a framework to work with to that aims to reduce the risk of data leaks or data breaches.
Given the nature of cybercrime and how difficult it can be to detect, it is difficult to understand the direct and indirect costs of many security breaches. This doesn't mean the reputational damage of even a small data breach or other security event is not large. If anything, consumers expect increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity measures as time goes on. There are three simple steps you can take you to increase security and reduce risk of cybercrime:.
This concerning statistic, however, has a silver lining. If staff are taught how to identify and correctly respond to cyber threats, the majority of data breach incidents could be avoided.
Such educational programs could also increase the value of all cybersecurity solution investments because it would prevent staff from unknowingly bypassing expensive security controls to facilitate cybercrime. Invest in tools that limit information loss, monitor your third-party risk and fourth-party vendor risk and continuously scan for data exposure and leaked credentials.
Data leaks , if left unattended, could help cybercriminals gain access to internal networks and breach sensitive resources. It's important to implement a data leak discovery solution capable of also monitoring leaks throughout the third-party network. Use technology to reduce costs like automatically sending out vendor assessment questionnaires as part of an overall cyber security risk assessment strategy.
Companies should no longer be asking why is cybersecurity important, but how can I ensure my organization's cybersecurity practices are sufficient to comply with GDPR and other regulation and to protect my business against sophisticated cyber attacks.
The amount of cyber attacks and data breaches in the recent years is staggering and it's easy to produce a laundry list of companies who are household names that have been affected. Not to mention the reputational damage that Equifax suffered. Attackers used a small set of employee credentials to access this trove of user data. The stolen information included encrypted passwords and other personal information, including names, e-mail addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth.
The breach was disclosed in May , after a month-long investigation by eBay. In this instance, security questions and answers were also compromised, increasing the risk of identity theft. The breach was first reported by Yahoo on December 14, , and forced all affected users to change passwords, and to reenter any unencrypted security questions and answers to make them encrypted in the future. However, by October of , Yahoo changed the estimate to 3 billion user accounts.
An investigation revealed that users' passwords in clear text, payment card data and bank information were not stolen. Nonetheless, this remains one of the largest data breaches of this type in history.
While these are a few examples of high profile data breaches, it's important to remember that there are even more that never made it to the front page. See our list of the biggest data breaches for more examples. Almost everything about you can be viewed as data—which is why you should always be in full control of the information that you share. Look into the terms of the apps you are downloading, and manage your privacy settings.
Always keep in mind what information you are sharing, and with whom.
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