IT Security and Risk Management Review

With the world turning digital, people are connected to multiple  devices throughout the day. Listening to your iPod at home, connecting to Wi-Fi at the coffee shop, or accessing your smartphone at work can leave you open to all kinds of cybercrime.

The digital world consists of the widespread use of mobile devices that cybercriminals are able to access through platforms, social networks, and the public cloud.

Organizations in particular need to protect against multi-faceted ‘advanced persistent threats’ (APTs – also known as ‘advanced targeted attacks, or ATAs).

The key attributes are:  the use of social engineering (such as spear phishing) to gain initial entry to a target organization’s network and execute a zero-day attack; the acquisition of privileges to further penetrate the target network; the establishment of communication links with external ‘command and control’ (C&C) servers; the theft or compromise of assets; and the covering of tracks after completing the mission.

Source: The Ponemon Institute/HP

 

Cost of a Cyberattack

The Ponemon Institute’s 2013 survey has found that the average annul cost of  cybercrime is $7.2 million per organization.

This represents a 30% increase from the year before.  The United States takes the greatest hit out of all countries surveyed.

Denial of Services (DoS) attacks account for the highest percentage of costs in both smaller(16%) and larger (22%) companies.

Attacks like viruses, worms and trojans, and phishing and social engineering (both 1.7x more prevalent in smaller organizations), malware (2.5x) and botnets (2.7x).

The larger companies are hit the hardest by Dos, and malicious insiders attacks.

Source: The Ponemon Institute/HP

Source: The Ponemon Institute/HP

The survey shows the average number of days that it takes to resolve the cyberattack ranges from 2.6 days for viruses, worms and trojans up to 53 days for malicious insider attacks:

Source: The Ponemon Institute/HP

To view more Internet Security full reports:

1. Symantec – Internet Security Threat Report 2013
2. Trustwave – 2013 Trustwave Gloval Security Report
3. PwC – 2013 Information Security Breaches Survey

Hyphenet can help you find the right type of cyberdefence for your company.  Rackmount appliances, cloud-based services and threat defense are all precautions you can take to protect your business and keep the bad guys out.

Call us today!  619-325-0990

Don’t miss out on the latest tech news and computer security alerts! Follow us on Twitter at @hyphenet,  “Like” us on Facebook or add us to your circle on Google+.

References:

McLellan, Charles
IT Security and Risk Management: An overview
http://www.zdnet.com/it-security-and-risk-management-an-overview_p3-7000022659/

IT security budget increase by 41 percent in 2014

It’s usually not until you get something stolen that you beef up your security and pay more attention to safety.

This past year has proven just how critical IT security is to companies.

New reports of data breaches and leaks, combined with internal threats have significantly increased concern for security woes.

The recent Tech Pro Research survey focused on IT security and discovered that 41 percent of survey respondents say they will increase their IT security budget for the next year.

This is a 16 percent increase compared to the number of budgets that rose from last year.

Only 11 percent say they plan to decrease their security budget next year.



Almost two-thirds of the survey takers said they are now more concerned with security, following media reports, breaches and leaks.

Smaller companies are usually the ones who lag when it comes to IT security.  Large organizations with more than 1,000 employees say they are planning to improve their IT security.

That doesn’t come as a surprise because they generally have more at steak.



The number one security concern is “Bring Your Own Device”, (BYOD) to work.

Lack of employee awareness regarding social engineering, is a topic that Tech Pro Research has put their focus into.

They have created a ready-made BYOD policy that companies can download to use as their own policy.




Other reports that address IT security topics are:

• Employee awareness challenges
• Improved risk management leads
• Managing internal threats
• Moving to risk management
• BYOD challenges

If you would like to Download the full Tech Pro Research report, IT Security: Concerns, budgets, trends and plans.  The report is free to all Tech Pro Research subscribers.

Are you a small business thinking about increasing your budget?  Let us know why in the comments below!

Don’t miss out on the latest tech news and computer security alerts! Follow us on Twitter at @hyphenet,  “Like” us on Facebook or add us to your circle on Google+.


References:

Hammond, Teena
Research: 41 percent increasing IT security budget in 2014
12/03/2013
http://www.zdnet.com/research-41-increasing-it-security-budget-in-2014-7000023597/