Cyber crime has been on the rise over the last few years, and it doesn’t look like it will be slowing down anytime soon. As it turns out, bad actors can turn a profit by targeting businesses, and their tools and tactics are only getting trickier.
Over the last three or four years, we’ve seen some of the world’s biggest data breaches. Yahoo, Marriott-Starwood, and Equifax were the highest profile attacks, with a combined 3.5 billion accounts hijacked for those events on their own. To put that in perspective, you could take any two human beings on the planet, and there would be a pretty good chance that one of them was a victim of a data breach over the last three years.
Security breaches like this have increased by over 67% since 2014, and the trend is still climbing.
What’s at Stake? We’re Basically All Hacked Now?
It’s actually almost a good thing that these massively high-profile data breaches are happening. Hear me out:
- It brings this type of crime to the public eye – Most Americans know about the Equifax breach. Awareness is a huge step in the right direction.
- There is so much data in these breaches that it is practically impossible for cyber criminals to use it all – If 500 million credit card numbers are stolen, the chances of one in particular being used goes down substantially.
We’re not looking at data breaches in a positive light, but I firmly believe that the last few years has been the lesson the world needed, and it is a lesson a lot of organizations are taking very seriously. Policies and laws are hitting the books, and compliance regulations are being mandated within certain industries. Organizations of all sizes are taking data security seriously.
What Does This Mean for Smaller Businesses?
Of course, when we talk about data breaches, we always reference the big ones like Yahoo, Target, Sony, eBay, etc. Or we talk about the municipal attacks, where large cities like Albany, NY and Baltimore, MD were targeted, along with smaller towns like Wilmer, TX and Lake City, FL being held at ransom.
We don’t hear about the 40-person company that goes under because of a cyber attack, because it affects fewer people. The problem is that small businesses are a major target. In fact, according to a survey by Verizon, 43% of breach victims were small businesses.
Smaller businesses are easier targets because they usually don’t pay as close attention to their security.
It’s Time to Take Cyber Security Seriously
There are things you can do. If you want to start getting serious about your organization’s cyber security, there is no time like the present.
Call our knowledgeable IT professionals at WheelHouse IT today at (877) 771-2384 to get started taking the steps you need to keep your company’s data and infrastructure secure.
