5 Eye-Opening Cyber Crime Stats & How to Not be a Statistics In 2021
In the cybersecurity context, statistics may come both as a blessing and a curse. Indeed, every day, thousands of cyber news portals report new impressive cases where malicious agents demonstrate brand new ways to seek into enterprise networks and compromise sensitive business data. The number of daily cyber attacks grows at lightspeed, while companies fall victim to newly emerging threats and pay with their reputation, customer loyalty, and, eventually, the businesses themselves.
Every day, around 4000 cybercrimes take place in the U.S. alone, 6.85 million accounts get hacked, 30.000 new websites get compromised, and 1 million malware threats are being created.
Both impressive and frightening, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, we’re here not to scare but to warn. While every company operating in the digital world has a risk to become part of the ever-growing cybercrime statistics, these numbers may actually give priceless lessons to learn from.
Today, we’re going to have a quick overview of the most striking recent statistics and discuss ways how businesses can stay away from such threats and cybercrimes. Some companies experienced huge losses in terms of cybersecurity: let’s find out how to not repeat their mistakes.
#1. In 2021, Cybersecurity Workforce Shortage Has Increased
Most statistics about cybercrime scream about the sharp growth of newly emerged viruses and attacks each year. And while there has always been a certain workforce shortage in the cybersecurity segment, the number of hackers increases faster than the number of cyber specialists. Today, there are almost 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs
What can you do about it?
In the best scenario, every IT team must be enhanced with skilled cybersecurity specialists. But since there’s a growing professional gap in the sphere, you should do your best to provide your IT experts with advanced cybersecurity training so your business can operate following the best security practices.
#2. Employees Are Often the Ones to Blame for Poor Cybersecurity
The rise of Bring Your Own Device and remote work cultures were expected to bring more ease to the lives of employees, but they seem to impact the wellbeing of businesses. When employers use their personal devices to log into the company’s network, they may pose a new vulnerability in the system. At the same time, when using a company’s device, employees tend to log into unsecured networks, share their passwords with colleagues, and forget to log out from the company’s systems.
What can you do about it?
If your employees are unaware of their impact on the company’s data, make sure to create cyber hygiene presentations, guides, and notes to teach them and remind about the very basics of cybersecurity.
#3. 59% Of Employees Steal Data When Leaving Their Jobs
Now, let’s talk about the cases when employees actually know the value of data. While insider threats may happen accidentally, it’s become a common practice to harm companies on purpose, selling essential data that may compromise the precious reputation. Nowadays, no one is immune to such an issue, and the right way to manage access to data is key to keeping businesses away from intentional internal data leaks.
What can you do about it?
There must be a clear data access line for each employee in the organization. Every device connected to the company’s network already has access to its data in some measure, and assigning access to confidential data to a limited number of specialists will lower the risk of internal threats.
#4. Email Attachments Are The #1 Source of Malware
Email scams are one of the most popular ways for attackers to obtain and compromise sensitive information of individuals, and the same goes for enterprise data. Again, it all comes down to employees’ data security awareness. Workers often fall victim to emails containing malicious links that give agents access to the company’s network. According to the Optus report, 90% of hackers sending just 10 malicious emails succeed in stealing data.
What can you do about it?
First off, every company must run with a protected mailbox system. For example, it can be a plugin that analyzes all the incoming letters and notifies sysadmins about potential and actual threats. At the same time, it’s vital to always double-check the sender’s information when it comes to mail containing attachments or suspicious finance or sensitive data-related actions required.
#5. The Most Expensive Computer Virus Costed Companies $38.5 Billion
Known as MyDoom, the virus was discovered back in 2004. Not only did it spread impressively fast across the enterprise networks but it also had a long-lasting impact, becoming the most expensive and destructive virus ever. The fun fact is, it transmitted through email. As a result, it slowed down the performance of Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, and many business giants. The bad news is, it’s still being distributed.
What can you do about it?
Just keep in mind how costly viruses can be, as well as how expensive negligence to data can be. Emails are the epicenter of malicious attacks, and now that we use them daily for personal and business purposes, you should ensure it’s properly safe and monitored in terms of security.
Summing Up
Data has always been the cornerstone of business success. That’s why there have always been those who wish to benefit from it. In the digital world, the importance of data grows stronger each day, while the creativity of hackers expands. This, in turn, gives life to enormously impressive and scary statistics that sound like a nightmare to companies worldwide.
But those cases are something that can actually drive companies toward success if they start learning from mistakes and become data-conscious.
We’ve talked about the most important facts that modern companies should know about. And if you, as a business owner, are wondering how to set up the perfect data protection strategy, contact us: we already have the right solution for you.
P.S. Stay tuned: this article is to be filled with more and more stats and facts to learn from!
