By the beginning of July 2021 up to 1500 businesses in America had been subject to a cybersecurity attack in the year, according to Florida-based information technology firm, Kaseya. Globally, hackers and other cybercriminals are constantly at work to try and disrupt businesses, whether it is for monetary gain or a digital protest. It is more important than ever to protect your business from falling victim to a cyberattack, and the first step in doing this is having strong IT security policies in place. In this article we are going to go through some of the most vital reasons to stay on top of your cybersecurity, and how you can make a start at it.
Save Money
In our previous blog post we spoke about ransomware attacks and the financial damage these can cause. Businesses who fall victim to a ransomware attack are often asked for millions of dollars to retrieve their files, otherwise they risk either having sensitive data leaked or losing the information entirely.
Hackers will often target businesses in order to make a financial gain for themselves, with many cybercriminals these days making their full-time living from this. Some will even attempt to directly gain access to a firm’s bank account or payment information, skipping the ransomware and stealing money directly instead. Particularly for smaller businesses, this could have devastating consequences. It is always worth investing a bit more time and money into your cybersecurity policies and software in the first place to help prevent this happening, and therefore saving you money in the long-run.
Protect Your Reputation
One of the more long-term effects of a cyberattack on a business is damage to your reputation. Customers need to feel that you are doing everything you can to protect their data, so they avoid becoming victims of cyberattacks themselves.
As early as 2015 British telecommunications provider, TalkTalk, had thousands of customers details stolen from their system by hackers; This resulted in hundreds of customers being subjected to scam phone calls. With the incident being heavily publicized, TalkTalk lost over 100,000 customers and estimated a massive £40 million financial loss. The best way to avoid such damage to your reputation is to firstly ensure this kind of incident doesn’t happen in the first place, but secondly to have policies ready so you know what to do if you fall victim to a cybersecurity attack – do you and your employees/colleagues know how to recognize and flag this type of issue? What can you do to reduce your likelihood of becoming a victim in the first place?
Legal Requirements
Here at Euclid Security, we often say that compliance alone does not always mean a company is safe, but a strong commitment to cybersecurity will often mean your business becomes compliant with guidelines anyway. With this is mind, it is still important to acknowledge that your business must be compliant with the relevant guidelines and regulations to avoid penalties.
Airline company, British Airways, was fined over $170 million in 2019 for a breach in customer data while not following GDPR guidelines. But, it is not just big conglomerates who put themselves at risk when not following guidelines. Depending on which country you are operating in and what type of work you do, there can be a host of guidelines to follow from HIPPA to NIST. We highly recommend asking a professional to go through your current cybersecurity policies to make sure they are up to date. Taking steps like this will save you a lot of time and money in comparison to falling victim to a cyberattack.
At Euclid Security we offer a range of services to help you keep your information security policies up to date with the latest and best practices out there. This includes consultation and advisory as well as risk and compliance services to make sure your business is in the best position possible in the event of a cybersecurity attack, and to prevent them from happening in the first place. If you want to have a no-obligation discussion about your cybersecurity, then get in touch today to speak with a member of our team.