Cybersecurity risks expected to increase in 2017

The year 2016 saw a rise in cyber-attacks, both ransomware and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) on small and large corporations globally.  Close to 50 percent of companies were subjected to some form of cyber-ransom attack in 2016.  Whether the ransom was medical records or street lamps, the threat is real.  Major DDoS attacks compromised many websites including prominent ones such as Twitter, Netflix, PayPal, and Pinterest. Yahoo was hit with the biggest data breach in history with information being stolen from 500 million user accounts.

Company concerns should focus on these items

• Data loss.
• Service Outage.
• Damaged Reputation.
• Customers or partners loss.

  According to a recent report by Forbes on cybersecurity risks in Asia-pacific in 2017, DDoS attacks will be an increasing threat to businesses in Singapore. In October 2016, local Telco StarHub was hit by a DDoS attack which led to an outage in broadband services of the customers.  Those are only the few that the news actually was released.  As with the United States, secure servers must be on everyone’s mind.   The Democratic party was hacked over the election cycle releasing countless emails.

Companies must formulate a response plan

 

Though the attacks are increasing, 40% of businesses do not have an incident response plan in place. While all attacks cannot be prevented, it is important to implement systems to notify internal and external stakeholders immediately to minimize disruption in case of unplanned system downtime. Failure to respond quickly can result in the loss of costly investments, opportunities as well as the reputation and customer loss.

Baron Software has provided the implementation plan for all companies to invest a strategic plan to educate the staff as well as securing the equipment from outside threats.  This is reality for anyone who has access to internal systems whether they are email or data servers, defense must be the plan of attack.  You can always request information on how Baron Software can assist in devising that response plan.