Threats are everywhere, but a little diligence and education can help you protect yourself, your employees, and your business B Y B I L L S H E R IDA N , CA E The numbers are staggering, and frightening.
500 employees is just under $3 million.
• A ransomware attack occurs every 11 seconds. In fact, 60 percent of companies have experienced a ransomware attack in the past year, and their average down time was six days. • One in every 6,000 emails contains suspicious URLs, including ransomware. • The number of malicious emails being sent is up 600 percent. • 560,000 new pieces of malware are detected every day. The costs can be just as staggering. According to research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and security vendor McAfee, estimated global losses from cyber crime hit $1 trillion in 2020, which was double the losses of 2018. A year later, those losses increased about six-fold, to an estimated $6 trillion. The average cost of a data breach for companies with fewer than
Adding fuel to the fire is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Officials with the Department of Justice are urging companies throughout the world to strengthen their cybersecurity defenses in the wake of the invasion. In a recent article for TechRepublic, reporter Brandon Vigliariolo said cyberattacks against U.S. companies aren’t a question of if, but rather of “when.”
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“Scott Kanry, CEO at cyber risk management company Axio, said there’s absolutely no question that U.S.-based organizations will see an increase in cyberattacks due to the conflict,” Vigliariolo writes. “Kanry said that we’re likely to see attacks like (distributed denial of service, or DDoS), phishing, activation of persistent malware and more across the 16 critical infrastructure sectors, STATEMENT
