In this digital age, data plays a pivotal role in our lives. Every passing second, we are unwittingly giving information away. And thus, every 3 seconds, somebody suffers from identity theft online because of cybercrime.
You fail to notice, but criminals online are smartly infiltrating your life, your workplace, your home, your use of the computer to learn about you, to profile you. Who you communicate with? Who you bank with? And every possible personal detail associated with you.
With our recent market surveys and client interactions at Nuwber, we have come to witness high-profile and widespread computer viruses making headlines; it has become obvious that we need to mature a human firewall in an age where a major part of our life resides online. But what our internet culture tends to lack at, is a common understanding to foster a learning framework for cybersecurity and threats online.
Therefore, data security solutions are crucial to both large corporations and individuals. It is, however, undeniably a tedious task that’s becoming increasingly difficult as hackers come up with an advanced mechanism to evade safety and security measures.
Here we discuss the cybercriminals striking facts about data security:
1. Global spending on cybersecurity will accumulate to $10 billion by the year 2027.
With increasing vulnerabilities crawling online, companies are motivated to invest heavily in cybersecurity and training employees, particularly regarding online scams, email phishing attacks, and ransomware attacks. Thereby increasing the cost associated with a crime by millions of dollars each year.
Cybercrimes have fueled a loss of trillions of dollars for corporations trying to secure their data. And as per Juniper Research, it is reported that in 2019, the amount has reached $2 trillion.
2. Only 23% of organizations have a consistent cybersecurity plan executed.
The increasing complexity and scope of the internet of things (IoT) adoption, AI-driven technologies, and large- scale cloud computing deployments, makes designing a defence road map for cyber-attacks more difficult than it appears. Thereby, according to The Fourth Annual Study on Cyber Resilient Organization, only 23% of organizations are successful in executing their security plans while maintaining consistency of standards.
3. There is no such thing as free lunch.
We all enjoy access to free Wi-Fi at coffee shops, libraries, cafes, bus stops, and other public places because why not when most of these public connections are either unsecured or have passwords shared publicly.
However, little do we know that by connecting over to these free networks, you are allowing a stranger to retrieve your personal information, from your name to your birthplace to the school you attended, within a matter of minutes.
4. Small businesses are effortless prey for cybercriminals.
Hackers see a clear path to invade small businesses. Thereby, the chances of these businesses being hacked because of their weak cybersecurity strategies (due to financial constraints) are growing rapidly.
Small business owners are of the view that their small-scale startup won’t be of much interest to hackers. However, the innovation in their business profile is what attracts cybercriminals, eventually allowing them to extract customer information from the database.
5. Ransomware attack every 14 seconds.
The 2019 Official Annual Cybercrime Report (ACR) has predicted that businesses are vulnerable to fall for ransomware attacks every 14 seconds.
6. Your password is insecure.
We all have a long list of passwords to remember and, most importantly, to manage. And then, when the memory feels overloaded, we tend to go with the shortcut of reusing passwords. But is your password secure?
Unfortunately, it isn’t.
In reality, these strings of characters and alphanumeric numbers that you enter as a password are smartly decrypted by hackers using common algorithms. Furthermore, there are numerous ranges of methods, for example, marketing emails and website links where people are asked to share their credentials. And unexpectedly a large audience of people are convinced to share their login information.
7. Email spamming is the most common approach for cyber-criminals to broadcast malware.
If you were to come across an email in your inbox from a leading e-commerce company that you often shop from, would you be surprised? Would you hesitate and reconsider before clicking on the web link that mentions one of their brand-new campaigns in the email body?
Well, of course, you wouldn’t. And what we fail to comprehend is that cybercriminals are predominantly behavioural scientists as well. They are well aware of human nature and know for sure that we are inclined to click the link before we even question our self to do so or not.
These spam links then lead to a malicious download, infecting our device precariously.
8. Devices operating on the Internet of Things can increase security vulnerabilities.
IoT devices were designed to increase efficiency; however, their effectiveness comes with greater risks. While many business owners are well aware of the need to protect their devices with antivirus, the security concerns pertinent to IoT are still unfamiliar, and their protection measure is often neglected.
Due to an increased number of endpoints and connection to the internet, they can be hacked just like any other internet-enabled device.
9. U.S cyber community reports only 10% of the committed cybercrimes.
The United States is largely addressed as the hub of technology, but the reported cyber crimes have been severely undercounted. The reason being the unproven nature of these crimes and the ease with which the criminals get away with the crime.
In cases that involve ransomware, it becomes very difficult to seek professional assistance or involve authorities as the criminal threatens to publish your personal or embarrassing photos publicly, causing reputational harm.
10. Cybersecurity market to become a $300 billion industry.
According to a press release by Global Market Insights in 2019, it is anticipated that by the year 2024, the cybersecurity market will expand largely to be a $300 billion industry. In fact, considering the recent outrage in cyber-attacks and exponential advancement in technologies, the amount will be much more than that.
Data breaches and cyber-attacks are anticipated to multiply in the years ahead as the computer networks expand, making it more important to have the right Data Security Solutions in place to meet the challenging threats. Thereby, it is highly recommended that you educate yourself regularly about the current cybersecurity trends and keep yourself in alignment with the security requirements of this era.
