Cybercrime has become an increasing threat to individuals and businesses, and it’s not going away anytime soon. Cybercrime is expected to cost its victims $6 trillion by 2021. As technology evolves, so do these cyber criminals. They are always on the lookout for new ways to target victims.
The 2018 Cyber Security Breaches Survey states that 43% of businesses and 19% of charities were victims of cybercrime. Yet at best only 3 in 10 businesses and 2 in 10 charities have any formal cyber security policy in place.
The National Computer Security Survey (NCSS) tracks the nature, prevalence, and impact of cyber attacks in the United States against businesses. It looks at three areas of cybercrime:
Approximately 6.2 billion files containing credit card information, health records, and other vulnerable information were accessed in 2018 by cyber attackers. Roughly 20% of those files were open for global access, and about 40% of companies had more than 1000 sensitive files open to everyone.
In 2018 The United States accounted for almost 30% of smart home device incidents globally. Most smart home devices are connected through an external network. If your router doesn’t have decent security protection, you could be setting your home up for a cyber attack.
Presently, more 24,000 malicious mobile apps are blocked each day. Roughly 60% of fraudulent activity takes place via mobile devices. Of that activity, 80% comes from mobile apps. Once a cyber criminal can access to your mobile device, they can get in to your your mobile banking app and successfully commit multiple levels of cyber crime.
It’s suggested that most businesses can take almost 200 days to notice a breach in their system. In that time attackers can get their hands on an abundance of information. Some finance companies have taken almost 100 days to realize an attack, and can sometimes experience over 50 attacks per month. Once data has been taken, it gets sold on the black market and there’s no turning back.
Although cyber attacks are increasing, more than 25% of businesses don’t have formal cyber policies, down about 5% from 2017. And top cyber security risks are caused by human error. Employees can easily make mistakes like: downloading a virus, opening fraudulent emails or accidentally getting directed to fake sites.
Just about 90% of hackers use encryption to successfully cover their trail. If individuals and businesses used encryption at that same rate, it would be much more challenging for cyber criminals to succeed.
If you’re ready to spend your hard earned income wisely on planned IT security maintenance instead of wasting money on security crisis management, contact Micronet Systems Integrations today.