One good thing flowing from the cyber crimes of 2018 is the lesson offered about the perils of ignoring IT security processes. Statistics show millions of consumers had their data inappropriately exposed in 2018, and those hackers are expected to be even more diabolical in the coming year. Companies that have been lax about protecting their perimeter may be open to even more nefarious cybercrime attacks in 2019 unless they actively seek out cybersecurity solutions in NJ.
Unaddressed Risks Threaten Corporate Wellbeing
While it’s the hacks and attacks against the big box conglomerates that make the news, the entities that experience the real economic pain meted out by cybercriminals are small- and mid-sized businesses. Not only is it exorbitantly expensive to clean up after a hack, many companies simply can’t muster the resources to do so and end up shutting down instead.
- A Pomemon Institute report reveals that the average cost to a small business to make repairs after a data breach or loss is $690,000, while for a mid-sized enterprise, the cost is over $1 million.
- Further, the National Cyber Security Alliance has determined that 60 percent of small companies that experience a cyber attack close their doors within six months.
Clearly, the potential damages caused by a cybercrime event are more than significant, and every northeastern U.S. enterprise should have cybersecurity solutions in NJ high on their list of priorities as they look beyond the turn of the new year.
Anticipated Cyber Crimes of 2019
Experts who study cybercrime data have made some predictions about what 2019 has in store for both businesses and cybersecurity professionals:
- The number of ransomware attacks will decrease while the reliable standard ‘phishing’ will experience a resurgence.
- Stymying the ransom-demanding bad-guys in 2018 were the firms and organizations that refused to pay up. Some of those companies stood on their moral ground and paid instead to re-develop their lost databanks. Others had invested well in redundancies and disaster recovery processes and weren’t relying on a single iteration of their data to remain in business.
- Phishing ‘professionals’ have also upped their game and their malware disguised as a legitimate email has gotten much more sophisticated. Making this threat worse: the cost of launching a phishing attack remains ridiculously low, so even new criminals are willing to try it.
- Spear-phishing will also increase, and add a nastier twist, too. Spear phishing involves the intentional targeting of a specific victim(s), either an individual person or company, then attracts their attention with a malware-laden email. Once the victim clocks the bait, the malware launches into the victim’s systems, stealing data and confounding processes.
The new spear phishing angle involves an early plant into the victim’s systems before the bait is set. While there, the phisher peruses the victim’s databanks and relationships, then exploits that knowledge to send financial transactions into the criminal’s coffers.
There will also be more exploitation of application vulnerabilities. Nefarious access to networks and infrastructure has been the norm in recent years, but added security on those systems has redirected hacker attention to the less-well-protected applications.
Finding Cybersecurity Solutions in New Jersey
With all this advanced warning, IT security experts are also recommending an uptick in cybersecurity budgets for the new year, too. However, they caution against just throwing more money into the security budget, and instead, advise making a more targeted investment in the appropriate security upgrades for their enterprise. Considering the security expenditures made by other companies isn’t advisable either, as a means of determining the value of the enhanced cybercrime defense fund. Their recommendation is to invest in the appropriate controls that protect your proprietary systems and maintain its readiness to defend against an attack.
Seek Out Threat Intelligence
Perhaps the scariest cybersecurity scenarios these days are the ones where the criminals sneak into corporate programming and lie there silently more months, siphoning off data.
Intentionally seeking threat intelligence from a cybersecurity solutions agent in NJ gives the CIO relevant strategies to identify and eradicate these bad actors before they can do too much damage. The advanced information about other, equally dangerous threats informs the cybersecurity budget, too.
Assess your risk posture
Every business changes and with every change comes added risk of vulnerabilities. A risk assessment provides a number of key insights that can help an organization deflect an attack, or recover more quickly when one happens. Standard risk assessment procedures will reveal where, within your enterprise, vulnerabilities are occurring and surmise the potential damage to the corporation if they are ultimately exploited. With this knowledge in hand, leaders can balance those risks with the benefits of cybersecurity investments to make the best-informed decision for the company.
Invest Wisely
Invest in security tools that protect your entity from invasion by defending it against attacks and reducing any damage that might occur. Your 2019 cybersecurity budget should cover all the essentials:
- Defenses that scan your organization’s perimeter, logs and databases for anomalies that might suggest a crime.
- Testing of its cybercriminal tools, to ensure that each works as intended and that all contribute to the better security of the whole.
- Backups and redundancies to ensure a sound data landscape to retain business continuity if a breach occurs, and
- Disaster recovery programming to quickly repair the damage caused by a breach and put your enterprise back on track.
As the adage goes, “You don’t have to live it to learn from it.” Let the cybercrime lessons of 2018 inform your cyber investments of 2019 as you seek out cybersecurity solutions in New Jersey.
