New Cyber Risks to Be Concerned About

Commercial businesses are facing new cyber threats in an ever-changing cyber world. Threats come from foreign countries or local hackers. Because of the rise in remote workers and reliance on digital devices, cyber-attacks are becoming more sophisticated and aggressive.

Throughout 2020 -21, the COVID-19 epidemic provided hackers with a new playground. As a result, many organizations have strengthened their cybersecurity systems and accelerated their digital transformation efforts. But what will the cybersecurity landscape and threat evolution look like in 2021 and 2022?

Cyber Threats to Be Concerned About 

• Cybercriminals will continue to target remote employees.
• Cloud breaches will become more common as a result of remote workforces.
• The cybersecurity skills gap will continue to be a problem.
• IoT devices (connected devices) will become increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats as a result of 5G increasing the bandwidth of linked devices.

Remote Workers

Today, there are more remote employees in the United States than at any other period in recent history. Many businesses are embracing this trend, but there are new dangers to be aware of.

As a result of this remote working environment, a critical challenge in the form of new security threats has arisen. Businesses have had to strengthen their cybersecurity in the digital age, yet cybersecurity risks have increased significantly due to remote workers. Employees who work from home or remotely are much more vulnerable than those who work in offices.

Top Cyber Risk Facing Your Business Today 

1. Ransomware.  Ransomware is a type of threat that encrypts data and demands payment to decrypt it. In 2020, the total amount of ransom demands will have reached $1.6 billion, with an average reparation amount of $1.25 million.
2. Cloud Computing. During 2020 there was a 65% increase in cloud use for businesses. Businesses should pay attention to correct cloud storage configuration, security of application user interfaces (APIs), and end-user actions on cloud devices in the future to increase cloud computing defenses.
3. Social Cyber Engineering. This type of cyber risk involves manipulating human psychology to gain access to accounts. Nearly a third of all breaches in 2021 will use social engineering techniques, with phishing accounting for 90% of them. Most of these come through emails, texts, and social media accounts.
4. Third-Party Software. Each of the top 30 e-commerce retailers in the United States is linked to 1,131 third-party resources, with 23% of those assets having at least one significant vulnerability. If one of the applications in this ecosystem is hacked, the hackers will have access to other domains. The average cost to a business of a third-party breach is $1.29 million.

How Your Business Should Respond

Invest in cyber liability insurance

Cyber insurance, in general, is designed to safeguard your business from these five key hazards through five unique insurance agreements: 

• Privacy and network security
• Cyber breach notification
• Business interruption in the network
• Media liability
• Omissions and errors

Train and educate your team

Regular security training will be necessary to ensure that all employees are aware of the newly implemented policies; after all, people cannot freely follow unfamiliar policies.

Complete a Cyber risk audit

The audit will give you information regarding what information you store and on what platforms. According to security experts, you can't secure what you don't know you have. Learning where you keep, transfer, acquire, or process sensitive data is an important part of any data breach prevention strategy.

Create a cyber policy

A cybersecurity policy is a document that includes your risk assessment and risk tolerance. It outlines the processes and policies in place to reduce the risk of a data breach.

Require multi-factor login

Multi-factor authentication helps reduce the risks associated with excess user access. 

Install anti-virus software

Installing and keeping an antivirus solution up to date is one strategy to reduce the threats posed by malware.

Create an effective backup and recovery process

Your business disaster recovery and business continuity plans should include a backup and recovery scheme. Make sure you have three backups on two distinct media, at least one of which is stored off-site.

Act Now

Embracing these cybersecurity principles ahead of time can help your organization achieve a strategic edge, set itself apart from the competition, and change from a reactive to a proactive cybersecurity mindset.

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