1. The Financial Services Industry Has The Highest Cost From Cybercrime
Cyber attacks cost financial services providers more than in any other industry. Corporations work to compile data that sheds light on the sector’s current condition. According to a new report by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the rate of violations in the industry has more than tripled in the past two years. According to financial reports, the average number of financial-sector violations rose from 134 in 2018 to 152 in 2019, and the average cost of violating financial-services rules rose from $13,000 to $152,500.
One report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in January 2020 confirms that banks face heightened digital cyber-attack levels due to how interconnected they are to each other.
The report claims that 38% of networks will feel the effect. It has also come to light that a cyber attack on a single bank’s computer virus compromised network, such as a data center, could threaten the financial stability of up to 1.2 million banks and financial institutions. These banks’ interconnectedness made it easy for spillover effects of cyber attacks on other banks, affecting financial institutions’ solvency.
DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) cyber attacks and others targeting mobile banking systems and mobile phone systems were among the most common at the start of the pandemic. Now, government agencies are closely monitoring such instances. These federal reports provide banks and users with security tips for securing mobile banking and apps in the years ahead.
Concerns about aggregation risk have come to the fore in a sector that is heavily reliant on confidence. Meanwhile, tech giants like Amazon and Google always have the potential to disrupt virtually every industry, including financial services. Many assume that the financial services sector has been most successful in achieving security through high security spending. This may be true from an individual or organization’s perspective, but those systems designed to be resilient cannot differentiate themselves to gain a competitive advantage.
2. The Average Cost Of A Data Breach Is $3.86 Million As Of 2020
For companies, the average cost of a data breach is now $3.86 million, compared to $2.8 million in 2015, according to a new report by the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Breach Investigations Unit (DBIU). That’s exactly what has happened in recent years, but the bigger mega-breaches are much more expensive.
The results are consistent year after year: Data breaches are more expensive in the U.S. than in other countries. In 2019, the (U.S.) saw its most expensive information security breach so far, with costs up to more than $8 million. There were $4.7 million in violations in 2015, $5.4 million in 2016, and $6.1 million last year.
3. Human Error is the Cause for 95% Of Cyber-Attacks
As far as data breaches go, Netwrix attributed 80% of breaches and 95% of cyber attacks to human error. Privacy breaches, which could also fall under the “human error” category, could cause companies up to $1.5 billion in damage.
Businesses struggle to maintain best practices, isolate critical infrastructure, and invest in the latest software and technology to protect themselves from cyber attacks by hackers. They overlook the importance of creating security awareness among employees and creating a cyber-security culture within the company. The reality is that no matter how comprehensive your cyber-security system is, cybercriminals will find an entry point, and you will get an attack. Complete virus protection against cyber attacks is impossible, which means companies should have a contingency plan to survive.
Leaders should not underestimate the damage that a serious cyber attack can do to a business, not only in terms of the cost of restoring network malware and downloadable viruses, but the true cost can often be reputational damage. The cost of falling victim to a cyber-attack exceeds the damage to your company’s reputation. According to IBM, the cost of educating your organization’s employees about the impact of cyber-security is significantly lower than the cost of managing and restoring cyberattacks.
4. Every Minute Someone Loses $17,700 Due To Phishing Attacks
According to Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report, phishing has become the most common type of attack targeting companies, with an average of 1,000 attacks per day last year. In Kaspersky Lab’s findings, the number of attacks on corporate networks, combined with spear phishing, total more than 95%.
Most phishing attacks find their victims via email, where the attacker can simulate a real person by pretending to be a colleague, relative, or someone the victim knows. There are other ways hackers launch phishing attacks, but these attacks lure victims with text messages or use voice messages to trick people. According to Kaspersky Lab, they design phishing attacks to send emails and text messages, and Vishing attacks use a voice message to “trick” people.
Attackers make it difficult to reach users, help users identify themselves, and implement software that detects fake emails before they reach users. Because of these shady strategies, the number of visitors to hacker sites increased by 66% last March.
Most organizations today use a phishing-based engine that scales up with the size of their business and the number of customers they serve. Popular cyber attacks include email, social engineering, javelin throwing, and DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. This is a common way to get victims to visit sites that hackers plague with malware and to get them to reveal critical business data. The most common attacks include distributed denial of service DDoS attacks and cyber attacks on e-commerce sites. Every 39 seconds, a cyberattack happens.
Hackers primarily conduct these phishing attacks to gather important information about a person or organization. Phishing emails look like spam, so it’s not surprising that employees get tricked into clicking on malicious links. Studies by the National Institute of Standards and Technology suggest employee training makes phishing less effective.
Phishing remains the dominant type of website attack in Europe. It represents a significant percentage of cyber attacks blocked by Allot – based solutions that operate throughout Europe in the third quarter, as highlighted in the “Q3 European Cyber Threat Report,” which is now available for download. They confirm that the most effective phishing attacks do not include links or attachments. Cyber attacks and data breaches occur by using easy-to-guess passwords or falling for phishing emails.
5. The Healthcare Sector Had The Most Reported Cybersecurity Breaches
The health industry has been a favorite target for cybercriminals for years. According to a new report by security firm Trend Micro, there were the most reported cybercrime violations in 2016.
The study found that criminal attacks on the health service have increased by 125 percent since 2010 and are the main cause of data breaches. According to Trend Micro, the health sector also saw a 49 percent increase in hacking, fueled by the rise in ransomware attacks and the use of third-party malware. Together with the previously reported decrease in the number of reported ransomware attacks and a previously reported decrease in cybercrime attacks, the study suggests that healthcare companies are recording fewer cyberattacks.
Overall, a decline in the number of “R-Ransomware” attacks became part of a study, largely due to improved security practices, not increased criminal activity. The report said the health sector would close an average of 1.5 million facilities in 2019, up from 1 million in 2016.
Healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and biotech had an average of 113,491 exposed sensitive files. Financial services had 352,771 exposed sensitive files and an average cost of $1.5 million per exposed file. In contrast, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology each had costs per sensitive file of about $5,000 or $3,500 across industries.
According to Trend Micro, theft and loss, not hacking, are the biggest types of data breaches due to the increasing use of malware by allied companies. The cost of remedying data breaches in the health sector is higher than in any other industry. Compared to about $3,400 in 2015 and $2,500 in 2016, a data breach can cost between $1,000 and $2,500.
6. 64% of Americans Never Check to See If They Were Victims of a Data Breach
Older Americans are more likely to think that they benefit from data collection than younger Americans. When it comes to privacy and personal information, 6% of adults believe they’re safer than five years ago, and 70% say they’re less safe. Of those over 65, only 17% believe that government organizations collect data from them, but only 19% believe that the same is true of the companies that collect data.
Among those over 65, only 16% consider the data collected by private companies to be safe. Similarly, 49% think it acceptable for the government to collect data on Americans to assess who might pose a potential terrorist threat. Also, 56% of Americans believe that the government is tracking some of the activities, which is the highest support for such data collection in recent years.
7. The U.S. Government Allocated $18.78 Billion For Cybersecurity
The U.S. Government passed a massive defense bill that included defense spending of $738 billion for the fiscal year 2020 and $18.78 billion for cybersecurity. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that’s an increase of $1.5 billion over what Congress passed in the fiscal year 2019. According to the Congressional Budget Office, ransomware damage will total over $20 billion in 2021. Companies will have to pay more than $1 billion by the end of the year on ransomware attacks.
Faced with these deeply disturbing realities, the United States government must require private industry and research institutions to take these threats seriously and develop cyber-security policies and practices that lead to multiple levels of cyber-security virus protection.
Moreover, Congress must pass legislation that empowers companies, in coordination with the U.S. Department of Justice, to respond to cyber attacks by stopping attacks and deleting their stolen information. Simply put, unless contractors and research institutes make cyber-security a priority, the United States will not promote information protection, and the most expensive cyber-security systems will fail unless establishments follow good cyber-security practices.
NCCIC, the U.S. Department of Defense’s digital security agency, receives only one dollar for every $10 spent on military offensives and defense operations. Indeed, the budget for cyber operations is nearly twice as large as the budget for the military and civilian cyber-security combined ($3.7 billion versus $2.21 billion). However, DoD accounts for only 1% of the country’s total military budget, and most civilian agencies are preparing to cut budgets. Accordingly, the budget for “digital security” does not exceed 0.1% of the organization’s total budget.
The overall increase in cyber-security spending strongly correlates with higher military spending. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s annual report, average annual security spending per employee rose to $2,691 in 2020 from $2,337 last year. The biggest drop in the proposed budget concerns the Commerce Department, which will drop 26% from about $514.3 million in 2020 to about $378.1 million in 2021. The Department of Veterans Affairs’ budget, another agency, is getting cut by 12% (from about $500.6 million to about $460.4 million by 2021).
8. Experts Credit Covid-19 For 238% Rise In Cyberattacks On Banks In 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has added fuel to the fire that cybercriminals exploited the crisis by launching further attacks. More than 18 million COVID-19-related malware and phishing emails get blocked every day through Google, while scammers were 400% more active online than they were earlier in the year. This summer, there were 12,377 cases of scams involving COVID.
A host of new threats and challenges have emerged since the COVID-19, including cyber-attacks, election security, data breaches, and wage fraud. As businesses find a way to create a new digital working environment, technology becomes more prevalent and more opportunities for attacks and hacking come along with it. Private company information is now transferred to more personal laptops – some of which do not have proper safetyware.
9. The Number Of Records Exposed Through The End Of September 2020 Was $36 Billion
Statistics from Risk Based Security show that the United States’ hacks in 2019 were up 17 percent from 2018. With 5 billion records exposed through 6,515 data breaches in 2018, 2018 was the second-largest year for publicly disclosed breaches in United States history, after 2015.
A study by Dell found that 63% of companies had to address the possibility of their compromised data last year by a cyber-attack occurring on the hardware or software used to manufacture the computers.
Research also shows a direct connection between data breach cost and the amount of information exposed. Another crucial finding is that hackers are responsible for more than half of all non-sensitive records exposed. According to the FBI, malicious software makes up 23% of all data breaches, while hacking constitutes 30%. The crucial finding is that hacking was one of the biggest causes of information breaches.
Based on The Information Technology and Research Council’s (ITRC) report on data breaches reported in 2019, 577 data breaches exposed (2.9) million records.
According to the I.T. Security Industry Association, the most common data breach was from unauthorized access to data with 538 million cases, followed by unauthorized access to stored data 15.3 million records. Added to this was a 14% increase in the number of unique malicious objects identified by Kaspersky’s web anti computer virus platform.
Most data breaches come from malicious activity by an organization, as the study found that malicious activity by individuals, such as cybercrime, identity theft, or fraud, was responsible for 56% of the total data leaks in 2018. Both methods affected the percentage of sensitive records uncovered in 2019 and the amount of data uncovered per record for each type of breach.
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