We are now so used to hearing about data breaches and hacks on the news that it seems to have become part of the fabric of daily life. And equally so, its complacency that says – it won’t happen to me. This is in part driven by the reporting being about major multi-nationals or global finance companies like Equifax – and now Uber. But did you know that the majority of cyber-attacks this year have been on businesses like yours? SMEs have been the focal point of attack for cybercriminals for some time now, and the scale of the individual loss means that national news doesn’t pick it up. But combined, it amounts to a large sum of money.
That’s a lot for you to lose.
There are three main reasons why cyber-attacks are increasing, despite most IT departments increasing investment in threat defence.
It’s not a game anymore
Say hacker to people and they have an image of a computer nerd sitting in a basement somewhere with loads of screens and computers hacking into government systems and tangling up big business just for the fun of it. A nuisance that needs dealt with – society’s problem, not mine.
That may have been the case once, but it’s quite the opposite now. Now cyber-attacks are nearly all based on financial gain – theft in other words. This is robbery pure and simple and is a criminal enterprise.
They are looking for you
Criminals look for easy pickings. Cybercrime is on two levels: As the multinationals increase spend and vigilance in their defences and training, so the hackers increase their own capability and range of tools – including social engineering. Read our blog on that here. However, it’s the second level that the cybercriminal finds profitable. And that’s companies like yours. The government’s recent cyber report and the latest from the CBI reveal that SMEs are most likely to be attacked, and are least likely to have adequate threat defence and staff training or a plan to cope with a cyber breach.
Compliance is not good enough
As the amount of data companies need to store, and business comes to rely on technology for communication, sales, invoicing, credit check, staff information, so the need for effective and above all proactive security becomes paramount. Hackers look for ways round and through defences. The threatscape changes constantly. Just checking that you comply with the rules will not protect you from attack.
Solarwinds, the global threat identification and protection company, said in a recent report that you need to make compliance the centre of everything you do in terms of security, diligence, and comprehensiveness. They see the threatscape evolving rapidly and spreading to more and more business sectors. The new EU GDPR requirements will add another layer of complexity to the regulatory defence of data, but simply complying will still leave your business at risk.
At KubeNet, we use Solarwinds to proactively monitor all customer connections on our own platform, KubeNet Managed Firewall Service (KMFS). Call us or email us at info@www.kubenet.net for a free check of your network and recommendations to upgrade and enhance your security now.
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