From manufacturing to finance, e-commerce to media, cybercrime has infiltrated every sector in every industry. Today’s threat landscape means it is almost a certainty that your business will fall victim to an attack if it hasn’t already.
Despite this growing threat, many C-Suite executives are not investing in the cybersecurity training or infrastructure needed to protect their organisation from the evolving nature of an attack. As you’ll see, this is a short-sighted approach that can ultimately lead to dire consequences for the future success of a company.
39% of UK businesses and 26% of charities have faced a cyber attack in the last year. Are you up to date on the latest techniques used and how to counteract them? Is your business protected? Find out more from 100+ speakers and solution providers at UK Cyber Week, 03-04 November at the Business Design Centre, London.
The state of cybercrime
Today, cybercrimes are more prevalent than ever before. Spurred on by the pandemic, when so many business processes migrated to online solutions, hackers are now more prolific and ingenious in their approaches.
Between 2010 and 2020, reported cybercrimes increased by 300% in the US alone. At the same time, the UK Office for National Statistics recorded an 85% increase in computer misuse offences.
All of these attacks come at a tremendous financial cost. In fact, by 2025, the cost of cybercrime to businesses worldwide is predicted to exceed $10 Trillion.
And with such sophisticated approaches, even if you do have cybersecurity measures in place, they may be falling short. In a recent report, the World Economic Forum stated that:
“Business, government and household cybersecurity infrastructure and/or measures are outstripped or rendered obsolete by increasingly sophisticated and frequent cybercrimes.”
To keep your business safe, you must be ahead of the curve. If not, the damage can be devastating.
What is the fallout from inadequate cybersecurity provisions?
Business leaders can feel the effect of a cyber-attack in every part of an organisation. Trust in a brand declines. Financial penalties, particularly for failing to secure confidential customer data, can be crippling. And you may require vast sums of time and money to fix infected systems.
That’s just on the customer-facing side of your organisation. Internally, you’ll need to deal with an attack’s damaging effects on your employees. They, too, may have had personal information stolen and made public. And why? Because the company they work for failed to secure the systems they need to complete their jobs securely.
What are the most common cybersecurity threats to businesses?
These are the most prominent cyberattack methodologies in 2022. They are not exclusive to a particular industry and hackers could use any one or multiple to harm your business.
Ransomware
This infects a system with malicious code. The aim is to block access to or encrypt critical files. Only when a ransom is paid is an attack suspended.
Malware
Hackers can also infect your hardware by installing various malware such as keyloggers, computer viruses, and spyware.
Phishing
Phishing attacks are on the rise. Along with social engineering tactics, they use impersonation techniques to convince a user to hand over important account access information.
Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
Systems are flooded with requests to a point where they can no longer function effectively. This bottleneck is often only removed when a financial settlement is reached.
Man-in-the-Middle (MITM)
Hackers can intercept traffic between various electronic communication channels, such as email. With this information, they can infiltrate your networks and wreak havoc.
Credential stuffing
A hacker will use an automated bot to bombard an organisation with login attempts using a list of breached credentials (bought and sold on the Dark Web )in a credential stuffing attack.
Action plan
So, what next? This article has provided you with an overview of the current threat landscape, and it should also have demonstrated the importance of implementing a solid cybersecurity strategy in your organisation. The difficulty is knowing how to develop and implement these security protocols.
At the upcoming UK Cyber Week conference, we’re inviting business leaders from every sector to join hundreds of other attendees to hear from industry experts including Senior Security Engineer and Tech Lead for Google, Chief Security Advisor for Microsoft, Cyber Crime Unit for City of London Police. You’ll learn about the latest cyber threats, cyber trends and insights across the industry and, more importantly, how to counteract them.
You’ll also hear from world class hackers and disruptors such as ‘Hacker’ – A real-life hacker sharing their experiences and techniques used to exploit and infiltrate systems; from airports and casinos to critical national infrastructure facilities; Geoff White – BBC, Sunday Times and Channel 4 investigative reporter and host of top podcast “The Lazarus Heist” doing an interactive phishing demo on stage, Cecilie Fjellhøy – The star of The Tinder Swindler, Jake Moore – exploring ‘How to hire a hitman on the dark web’ and more.
