Did you know:
• That 59% of all ransomware attacks take place in the United States?
• That looking at industries impacted by cyberattacks, according to IBM’s 2024 Threat Intelligence Index, Manufacturing took the lead in 2023 accounting for more than 25% of all cyberattacks? Banks and financial institutions come in next at 18.2%!
• The cost of a cyberattack continues to grow with an all-time high average of $4.45 million in 2023?
• That cyberattacks have become so prevalent that IBM has opened a facility that will help train federal agents and their suppliers so they can respond to cyberattacks?
Time will soon tell what the final statistics for 2024 are. Our prediction is that the rise in cybercrime will continue, surpassing that of prior years. If this does come to fruition, the impact of the attacks will result in an increase of total financial loss, reputational damage, loss of productivity, and business continuity challenges.
Let’s look at some of the top data breaches this year, due largely in part to human error and compromised credentials:
• Social Security Leak (April 2024): The hacker group USDoD exploited vulnerabilities at National Public Data, breaching the records of 2.9 billion individuals, including Social Security numbers.
• AT&T (March & July 2024): Two significant breaches exposed personal details and call metadata for over 183 million records, demonstrating critical flaws in data handling practices.
• Change Healthcare (June 2024): A massive breach compromised medical data affecting potentially one-third of Americans, underscoring catastrophic security failures.
• Ticketmaster (April 2024): As part of the widespread Snowflake data theft, this breach revealed critical gaps in vendor management oversight, exposing 560 million records.
• Synnovis (June 2024): A cyberattack stole nearly 400GB of sensitive information, including patients’ names, dates of birth, NHS numbers, and details of medical tests, severely jeopardizing patient privacy and hospital operations.
• CDK Global (June 2024): IT systems for nearly 15,000 car dealership locations across North America were shut down when an employee accidentally downloaded malware resulting in the encryption of critical files and systems.
These data breaches and many others highlight the urgent need for more robust cybersecurity measures. We cannot stress enough the importance of ensuring your business is protected from a security standpoint. Don’t think a cyberattack can cripple your business? It can and will. If your business does not have the proper security solutions in place, it is in a very vulnerable position. It is no longer if it happens but rather when it happens.
We are here to help you understand what you need to implement to keep your business safe from cyber criminals. Please contact us to schedule a time to discuss this or to simply double-check that you have everything you need in place.
