Cybersecurity is important because it protects all categories of data from theft and damage. This includes sensitive data, personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), personal information, intellectual property, data, and governmental and industry information systems. Without a cybersecurity program, your organization cannot defend itself against data breach campaigns, which makes it an irresistible target for cybercriminals.
Both inherent risk and residual risk are increasing, driven by global connectivity and usage of cloud services, like Amazon Web Services, to store sensitive data and personal information. Widespread poor configuration of cloud services paired with increasingly sophisticated cyber criminals means the risk that your organization suffers from a successful cyber attack or data breach is on the rise.
The proliferation of data breaches means that cybersecurity is not just relevant to heavily regulated industries, like healthcare. Even small businesses are at risk of suffering irrecoverable reputational damage following a data breach.
What is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is the state or process of protecting and recovering computer systems, networks, devices, and programs from any type of cyber attack. Cyber attacks are an increasingly sophisticated and evolving danger to your sensitive data, as attackers employ new methods powered by social engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) to circumvent traditional data security controls.
The Importance of Cybersecurity
Governments around the world are bringing more attention to cybercrimes. GDPR is a great example. It has increased the reputational damage of data breaches by forcing all organizations that operate in the EU to:
- Communicate data breaches
- Appoint a data protection officer
- Require user consent to process information
- Anonymize data for privacy
The trend toward public disclosure is not limited to Europe. While there are no national laws overseeing data breach disclosure in the United States, there are data breach laws in all 50 states. Commonalities include:
- The requirement to notify those affected as soon as possible
- Let the government know as soon as possible
- Pay some sort of fine
Why is Cybercrime Increasing?
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.
Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated, changing what they target, how they affect organizations, and their methods of attack on different security systems.
Social engineering remains the easiest form of cyber attack with ransomware, phishing, spyware being the easiest form of entry.
According to the Ninth Annual Cost of Cybercrime Study from Accenture and the Ponemon Institute, the average cost of cybercrime for an organization has increased by $1.4 million over the last year to $13.0 million and the average number of data breaches rose by 11 percent to 145. Information risk management has never been more important.
Factors driving the growth in cybercrime include:
- The distributed nature of the Internet
- The ability of cybercriminals to attack targets outside their jurisdiction makes policing extremely difficult
- Increasing profitability and ease of commerce on the dark web
- The proliferation of mobile devices and the Internet of Things.
What is the Impact of Cybercrime?
Economic Costs
Theft of intellectual property, corporate information, disruption in trading, and the cost of repairing damaged systems
Reputational Cost
Loss of consumer trust, loss of current and future customers to competitors, and poor media coverage
Regulatory Costs
GDPR and other data breach laws mean that your organization could suffer from regulatory fines or sanctions as a result of cybercrimes.
How to Protect your Organization Against Cybercrime
Educate Staff
Human error was the cause of 90% of data breaches in 2019.
Protect Your Sensitive Data
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. Almost 60% of data breaches occur via compromised third-party providers, so by shutting down vendor data leaks, the majority of data breach incidents can be avoided.
Implement a Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) Solution
