Identity Theft and Cyber Crimes can affect us all. The statistics are changing so quickly that it is hard to keep up. Identity theft has increased from 12.7 million in 2014 to 16.7 million in 2017. In 2016, a business fell victim to ransomware every 40 seconds. It is estimated that businesses will fall prey to ransomware every 14 seconds in 2019 and 11 seconds in 2021. Global cost of ransomware is predicted to reach $11.5 billion in 2019 and $20 billion by 2021. It can and does happen to anyone! Children are prime targets and have become victims of Identity Theft 51 times more than that of adults.* These invisible crimes are happening everywhere.
Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and programs from digital attacks usually aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying confidential information; extorting or stealing money from users; and interrupting normal business processes.
These attacks can literally cripple a business and affect every aspect of operations. It is difficult to implement effective security processes as there are many more hackers and electronic devices than defenders.
In today’s connected world, everyone benefits from Cybersecurity utilization. Individual cybersecurity attacks can result in everything from identity theft, to extortion attempts, to the loss of retirement plan savings. On a corporate and manufacturing level critical data, confidential personal information, and financial data are at risk. We all depend on critical infrastructure like power plants, hospitals, and banking/financial service companies. Securing these and other organizations is essential to keeping our society functioning.
An optimal process of cyber security has multiple layers of protection utilizing many networks and programs designed to spread information across multiple networks. The key to successful implementation in an organization, is that the people, processes, and technology all consistently work together creating an effective defense from cyber-attacks. It is imperative we confirm our service providers are utilizing a similar process.
There are Identity Theft Protection providers who can provide protection for you, your families, your employees and coworkers. They provide services such as credit monitoring, Dark Web monitoring, credit and financial transaction monitoring, alerts on possible crimes and reimbursement of stolen funds. There are also Cyber Crime insurance policies to protect your businesses from these hackers and thieves.
While we would like to think cyber attacks can’t happen to us, they can. At Oswald we can work with you to provide insurance protection from such risk. Please let us know if you would like more information on how we can help.
*All statistics from Cybriant.com, 2019