Cybersecurity threats have been on the rise in 2021, and according to the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), although the uptick of incidents is alarming, companies too often take a reactive approach to cyberattacks, which presents numerous pitfalls in the event of a breach, including:
- Significant revenue loss, especially if the organization’s ability to monetize—via work disruption, platform downtime or system interruption, for example—is compromised.
- Loss of intellectual property, including designs, blueprints and strategies. In today’s hypercompetitive technological landscape, losing intellectual property can irreversibly impact an organization’s competitiveness.
- Expenses associated with reactive measures, such as consulting, remediation, legal, security and public relations fees.
As organizations increasingly adopt hybrid or distributed work models, the threat landscape is shifting. Teams are working to protect even more user touchpoints and handle unique risks associated with employees working from home.
With attackers targeting organizations of all sizes and industries, leaders need to take steps to protect their entire ecosystem, including business, employee and customer data, and access to their network, websites, applications and financial accounts.
KNOWING THE THREATS
In just the past year, the threat landscape has evolved considerably. With cyberattacks hitting companies of all sizes and industries, leaders must now be knowledgeable of the risks that could potentially harm their operation.
- The human element was involved in 85% of breaches analyzed in the DBIR
- Attacks on web applications comprised over 80% of breaches
- Phishing was present in 36% of reported breaches, up from 25% last year
- Ransomware appeared in 10% of breaches this year, more than double from last year.
As digital transformation occurs across the business world, external cloud assets were more commonly compromised than on-premises assets in both incidents and breaches, making the cloud the new frontier for organizations to protect.
