Is Your Company Ready for a Cyber Attack?

Can you prepare for a cyberattack? Yes.

Performing a risk assessment and conducting the necessary planning as a proactive, precautionary measure, ensures maximum preparedness for your business. Tabletop exercises also reveal insightful information about vulnerabilities, threats, defenses, and impact. All these topics require your attention to be ready for a cyberattack.

When you understand the sheer number of daily and weekly attacks and the financial costs those attacks have on a business, you begin to appreciate the need for strong protections. Hackers are incessantly targeting companies from every possible angle, ready to pilfer personal information.

Cybersecurity isn't a topic to be addressed casually. The statistics alone are a call to action. The 2022 Internet Crime Complaint (IC3) Annual Report stated that cybercrime amounted to over $10,000,000,000 in financial losses for the year. This number is a 30% increase over the previous year, a 400% increase over a five-year period. IC3 reports almost 500,000 cybercrime victims in the United States in one year alone. The United States represents the country with the most victims of cyberattacks, globally. Business Email Compromise scams and data breaches top the list of successful cyberattacks resulting in financial loss.

Cybercrime and the success rate of cybercriminals is growing at an alarming rate. Regardless of the statistics, to stay safe, you need to understand the threats you're facing and how well-equipped you are. You should also consider industry specific compliance rules and regulations which may apply to your business such as HIPAA, PCI, NYSDFS, etc. You need to keep the bad guys out but if they do get in, you may be required to notify regulatory agencies.

Cybersecurity is a complicated topic. Partnering with a cybersecurity company that not only understands your needs but can assist you implementing best practices and protocols is a wise decision. One big reason is to leverage third parties is their teams of experts and their experience. Having antivirus software installed on a computer is not enough. Modern threats like ransomware, Zero day vulnerabilities, social engineering, and man-in-the-middle attacks are few examples threats against which antivirus software is useless. The right threat requires the right solution. In this example, EDR, SOC, and SIEM solutions might be more appropriate.

In conclusion, questioning whether you're prepared for a cyberattack is like asking if you're prepared for an accident. When an accident occurs, having insurance and appropriate coverage enables you to address the issue effectively—similarly, with a cybersecurity company by your side, you can do the same in the event of a cyberattack.