The world has witnessed a rampant increase in the number of cyber-attacks and security breaches. No one is safe from the dangers of these types of attacks. What makes businesses most vulnerable is the lack of information and awareness surrounding them. News outlets and other media often fail to mention the extent of the damage these attacks cause.
Attacks have affected organizations from top to bottom. Sometimes entire nations and millions of people have found themselves at the mercy of bad actors. Connectivity and high-speed internet are the new norms. Private organizations, government offices, and individuals- all have access to and rely on this technology. Online security must be a priority and implemented, irrespective of who the user is.
Understanding some of the massive security breaches that have occurred recently, can help gain some perspective. Knowing what could happen and how to prepare and react are imperative to making sure your business is safe.
Data breaches occur when a cyber-attack on a system results in the theft of information. This might include sensitive, confidential, or proprietary information. In 2020 alone, almost 1001 data breaches were reported in the US, affecting more than 155.8 million individuals. No industry is safe from these attacks. In fact, the US healthcare industry alone faced 55.1% more data breaches in 2020, affecting more than 26.4 million people.
The main cause of these breaches has been human error. This often stems from a lack of understanding of good security practices. Not even law enforcement is safe.
In 2019, the LAPD was the subject of a cyber attack that compromised the personal information or about 20,000 police department applicants. The sensitive information included email addresses, partial social security numbers, and birth dates. The theft, and possible leaks of this type of information could result in harassment and identity theft of the applicants. A huge risk for the police department and the city.
Then this year, on the opposite coast, the Washington D.C. police department faced a very similar situation. Only this time some of the stolen information that was posted included cell phone numbers, financial information, and home addresses. This information was posted to the Dark Web after negotiations for a ransom broke down between the hackers and District officials.
These two attacks on police departments are not isolated incidents. According to Sky News, so far this year 26 government agencies have been hit by ransomware, and data from 16 of those attacks have been released online. Human error is a huge factor is how these have occurred.
A Stanford University study shows that 88 percent of data breaches are a result of human error. This means that organizations that spend resources on training employees about data breaches and measures for prevention and remediation have a better chance of dealing with them. They also have a better chance of minimizing associated costs.
In addition to training employees, organizations also need to take steps to secure data, and protect it in the event of an attack. A significant part of this is maintaining compliance. Network security and compliance will ensure that your organization has measures in place to protect employee and client information.
Emails are often the gateway to data breaches. It is crucial to make sure your email security and encryption methods are up to par. Training employees to identify phishing and scam emails is also an essential part of this process. Also, having a trusted IT partner or team can help to mitigate risk and take some of the pressure off leaders who are trying to run the business.
The main focus of a technology partner should be to keep your network up and running 24/7, 365 days a year. A large part of that is keeping your business data secure. A trusted IT partner can help to eliminate the risk of unauthorized access your network. They will also provide security training and phishing testing for employees to keep them up to date on the latest threat trends. This can save time for managers to perform other duties and important trainings related to the business.
In the event of a cyber-attack an IT partner can be the difference between full data recovery or loss of time, money, and data. Making sure you always have a working back up of your system and that your firewalls are up to date are the first things that a good technology partner will do to make sure that your cyber risk is minimal.
LammTech has threat mitigation solutions that can lower the risks of breaches and ransomware. Services and solutions include employee awareness training and testing and reporting. Other solutions include dark web monitoring for leaked credentials, enterprise class enhanced firewalls, and backup solutions for disaster recovery.