Cyber risks are also peaking in 2022. As a business leader, you'd better stay alert. In this blog, we take a brief look at new trends.
And we help you make the necessary investment choices in prevention. Tools are good, but also invest in your strongest link: people. If you don't, your employees will become or remain your company's weakest link.
In 2021 the number of registered cyber incidents rose by 50% compared to the year before! (Check out this graph!)
Whoever thought that this was the end of the story was faced with a harsh reality check in recent weeks, as the increase continues unabated this year.
The reason is as simple as can be: it is ridiculously easy to make a tremendous amount of money.
Research shows that in 2021 alone, no less than 12.3 billion euros in crypto money can be linked to crime!
The graph below shows an interesting shift in the ways this money was looted: in 2020, it was mostly ransomware, in 2021, scams & real crypto theft made their rise. In this fascinating blog post, Cybercrimeinfo.nl zooms in on this topic
Criminal crypto money by origin and per year
However, the problem of malware is not over. After all, it is very profitable! And so criminals invest in ever newer and better malware variants. Too often, companies assume that malware plays less of a role in encrypted connections. The opposite is true: in Q3 of 2021, the number of malware attacks via encrypted connections rose from 31.6% to an astounding 47%!
This contribution on belgiumcloud.com explains these and other malware trends in more detail.
Business leaders are rightly concerned about this relatively new but explosively growing threat to their investments & continuity. This is confirmed by the latest Allianz Risk Barometer 2022 in which business leaders once again named cyber risk as the number one risk they are losing sleep over. Moreover, cyber risks are in first place on a GLOBAL level as well as within EUROPE and BELGIUM!
INCREASE YOUR RESILIENCE!
When you think about investing in prevention as a company manager, it is smart to make the following breakdown:
1/ Improvement of your Technical Firewall
2/ Strengthening your Human Firewall
This is not just another way of looking at prevention, it is also a smart way!
Investing in technical partnerships and tools...that's a well-known solution. And fortunately, we see investments in them increasing. But investing in cyber security should not be narrowed down to an assortment of IT tools.
Investing in higher cyber awareness and less naivety among your employees is at least as important. Such investments make your employees a strong first-line-of-defense. If they recognize a malicious link as such and do not click on it, then you do not need a tool to limit the consequences.
A survey by Data News shows that 7 out of 10 managers are seriously concerned and consider the behavior of their employees as a threat to company data. In other words, they fear employees leaking company data to criminals unintentionally. But no tool can prevent this.
So make urgent efforts to increase employee involvement. Because without them, it won't work!
- Involve them
- Provide clear procedures
- Appoint a responsible person so that employees know who they can contact
- If they doubt the authenticity of an e-mail.
- when they are unsure about a particular request for information
- Train them: a user awareness course certainly pays off. Phishing training tools are very affordable and help your employees to recognize such mails.
- Implement 2-Factor authentication today.
- Make sure you have a well thought out password policy.
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PLAN B
Prevention is always the first step. But just as for other major risks that you cannot avoid 100%, it is logical and smart to insure residual risks. Or at least to thoroughly explore the insurance options.
CyberContract's insurance solutions offer more than just insurance cover. They are all extended with 24/7 support from Belgian professionals in IT forensics and legal support. So you can rely on direct assistance when your company is under attack. Indeed, we are an important part of your plan B.
And the cost? It's usually not that big a deal. Calculate your personal quote online...on our site or via one of our specialized partner brokers.
