Cyber Threats are not an “If,” but “when” situation, with cyber-attacks being responsible for the theft of personal records measured in the BILLIONS globally, annually.
And what is worse, the detection of these thefts is not immediate, with the majority of breaches taking on average over 5 months to detect, leaving your data unknowingly exposed and potentially circulated.
Think you or your business is immune?
“I’m not a fortune 500 company – I won’t be targeted.”
Think again - smaller companies have fewer technical experts on staff and less advanced security. It is also reported that Hackers can target 12 smaller companies in the time it would take to target 1 larger company. Plus one of the 12 smaller targets might offer a less secure “side door” into that 1 larger company.
What does this mean? It means that organizations need to re-prioritize their approaches to cyber security strategy.
How to Lower Your Cyber Risk:
1. Locate Your data – Where is it? Located on servers? Portable computers? Mobile devices? Paper data storage?
2. Delete what you don’t need – it’s estimated that around 65% of stored data has no business value.
3. Control Access – Once you locate your data and discern what is of value and what can be deleted, restricting access to sensitive data is your best proactive move to mitigating risk. A significant percentage of data breaches result from employee negligence and “rogue” employees.
4. Vet your Vendors - How many of your businesses utilize third party vendors? How well are they protected?
5. Consider Cyber Insurance - A Ponemon study found that 62% of surveyed companies report that their ability to deal with security threats improved following the purchase of cyber insurance. Even if it doesn’t help mitigate the inherent risk, it helps to respond to a breach after it occurs.