In today’s highly connected marketplace, doing business requires having significant connections to cyberspace. Ecommerce, for example, has been predicted to grow to the size of $4 trillion in sales per year by 2020. The trend is clear. Businesses will only become more ingrained with technology and the internet in the future.
The current digital nature of the business world has a lot of benefits including increased efficiency, more effective marketing and higher profit margins. However, this does not mean all the change has been good. There are, in fact, certain huge threats originating from cyberspace that companies must be aware of and take steps to guard against. Below are just a few of the reasons why cyber security is vitally important for today’s companies.
You Could Lose Your Competitive Advantages
Most people tend to think of cyber security threats in regards to things like viruses that, while certainly a nuisance, can be resolved with the running of antivirus software. However, that’s not the only kind of threat you can face. If your business implements valuable trade secrets to make a profit, you could be at risk without proper cyber security measures.
According to estimates, trade secret theft causes the United States to lose from one to three percent of its GDP each year. Much of this trade secret theft comes from corporate spies that deploy hackers to do their handiwork. Even reporting the crimes in question won’t do you much good since many of these attacks originate from Eastern Europe and Asia, which are outside the FBI’s jurisdiction. If you want to stop trade secret theft and other forms of digital intellectual property theft, you need to have solid cyber security measures in place.
You Could Be Sued for Millions
Experiencing a hacking is a huge hassle. The downtime that can result from such an attack can cost a lot of money for a company. System and website downtime costs businesses an astounding $1.55 million per year. However, these temporary costs may give you a false sense of the true cost of such an attack. A significant hacking could lead to your company being sued for millions.
Many hackings are executed as a means of stealing customer information. Things like names, addresses and credit card numbers can be used to steal a person’s identity and defraud them of thousands of dollars. After that happens, it’s very likely those victimized customers will organize a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit will not be against the hackers. It will be against your company. Class action lawsuits are part of the reason why the average data breach costs a company $4 million.
You May Have Vulnerabilities You Aren’t Aware Of
Another reason why you need to invest in cyber security is the nature of a company’s network connections can be very complex. It’s not something that can be properly safeguarded by amateurs. Even if you think you have done a lot to guard against malicious attacks, it may not be enough. There may be serious vulnerabilities in your system you aren’t even aware of.
You may need to invest in SIEM management to be fully protected. SIEM stands for Security Information and Event Management. This refers to software that can provide you with a more holistic view of your network infrastructure. With SIEM, you can get a better idea of where your system is vulnerable. These gaps in security can then be filled before they are ever exploited by a hacker or other malicious actor. If there is an intrusion attempt, the SIEM system will be able to alert you of it and will record information regarding the breech attempt so it can be analyzed.
Overall, adequate cyber security is an absolute necessity for businesses both large and small. Not protecting your company from digital threats is a huge mistake. It’s one that could come back to haunt you and lead to your business’s untimely demise.
