Managing cyber risk in the current atmosphere requires constantly staying abreast of new threats. Every new technological advancement creates new opportunities for criminals to turn your systems against you. Companies rightly concern themselves most with cyber crimes like data theft or extortion. Yet even seemingly minor crimes can cause lost revenue for companies not paying attention.
A massive ransomware attack crippled thousands of businesses around the globe on May 12, 2017. Nicknamed WannaCry, the attack hit Britian’s National Health Services, FedEx, and ahost of major companies. Preliminary reports estimate the number of affected companies at over two hundred thousand. It is too early to put a number to the economic damage caused by the attack, but it serves a critical reminder of important cyber security principles.
An emerging area of cyber liability for small businesses centers around the concept of third party risk. Third party risk means damages resulting from the security breach of a connected party - normally vendors or customers. Small businesses can face third party cyber risk on a number of fronts. They can face liability from a breach of their own systems infecting a vendor; they can also face damages caused when the breach of a vendor causes a breach of their own systems. Franchisee relationships have also caused increasing concerns of cyber risk.
Cyber criminals have a large number of ways of gaining access to a company’s computer systems. What they do when they gain access to that system can also vary widely.
It's the holidays for the criminals too, you know...
Social Engineering scams increase right around the holidays. With the increase of people shopping online and the odd-hours, hurried correspondence at work, it is getting harder to filter through which emails are legitimate and which ones could be a trap.
Organizations’ zeal for harnessing the usefulness of mobile devices like smartphones, tablets and thumb drives can sometimes overshadow these devices’ attendant risks. Mobile devices increase productivity, but losing just one that contains protected health information (PHI) can cause a costly data breach. A proper response plan can prevent a slip-up from becoming a disaster.
