Cybersecurity: A Worthy Investment

Financial organizations and huge corporations are most at-risk for malware attacks. That doesn’t mean small businesses aren’t increasingly being targeted as well. According to a National Small Business Cybersecurity Study, it’s estimated that one-fifth of small businesses don’t have or use antivirus software. Failure to protect themselves from hackers is one major vulnerability that is commonly exploited.

The High Cost of Hacking

If you’re second-guessing advanced security protection because you think it costs too much, consider the estimated $100 million in losses Sony Pictures Entertainment suffered in late 2014. Financial losses aside, much of the stolen data was released to the public. Over a year later, it continues to be a source of media scrutiny and an embarrassment to Sony Pictures.

More recently, Magnolia Health Corporation was hacked after employees mistakenly responded to a forged email request. It claimed to be from the company’s CEO, Kenny Moyle. The email was so convincing that hundreds of employees responded, and the hackers walked away with all of their identifying information, including their social security numbers.

A recent Juniper Research study concluded that data breaches will cost the global community $2.1 trillion by 2019. Considering the benefits of increasing your security spending is very important. Leaving yourself vulnerable is an invitation to be hacked. An investment into your security today could save you millions in losses later.

The Biggest Threat to Your Business

Targeted emails, such as what the employees of Magnolia Health received, are currently a huge financial threat to your company. This method of hacking is called spear phishing, and it’s designed to coerce sensitive information from individuals or convince them to download malware. Ask yourself how often your employees are transmitting and downloading documents because even a Microsoft Word document can be infected with malware capable of bankrupting your company and destroying your reputation.

Hackers will use any information possible to pose as members of your organization. They will use social media to learn personal details about you or your employees. They will pose as your clients and even your competitors to draw the information they need. It only takes one person to click a link or download an infected attachment. Once downloaded, your entire system is at risk unless it is protected against these types of hacking attempts.

Cyber Security

How much would it cost to recover your losses if you were hacked? Remember: malware has the capability to completely erase all of your company’s data, as well as ruin your reputation. Consider this when you’re determining what you can afford to spend.

In December of 2011, a geopolitical intelligence firm named Stratfor was targeted by hackers because the company lacked credit card encryption software. All of their clients and some of their employees suffered when hackers gained low-level control over the company’s website. From there, the hackers were able to infiltrate the company’s entire MySQL database, which included unencrypted credit card information. It’s becoming increasingly important to spend not just on antivirus protection, but encryption as well.

Training your employees is necessary, but costly. There’s no real way to quantify what training will cost you, but training your staff members to identify suspicious emails is necessary. The cost depends on how many employees you have and how long it will take them to learn. In general, your staff should be trained to use virus protection to scan attached documents and they should avoid clicking suspicious looking links. You can also train them to protect their social media accounts and ensure their individual online activity isn’t putting their identities at risk.

Lastly, your biggest spend should be on protection services such as malware detection and antivirus software. You should consider software that’s able to segregate and encrypt sensitive information. A secured file transfer system can prevent data theft and there are also services that offer an extra layer of security to your setup such as the one offered by ThreatSTOP. The cloud based service they offer works with your current firewalls to block communication with bad IP addresses or websites, thereby protecting your corporate network from malware attacks.

The secret to budgeting for security expenses is pushing for greater security in the most common threat zones. Because suspicious emails are the leading way hackers gain access to a system, you may end up spending the most to combat this issue. That doesn’t mean you should sacrifice cyber security in other areas. It simply means that you should make email security a top priority. At the end of the day, cyber security is cost effective if and when you consider the potential for losses.