7 Alarming Cyber Security Facts and Stats

In honor of October being Cybersecurity Awareness Month, here is an article I found on Cybint Solutions to better help you understand the importance in maintaining a close eye on your personal information online.

1. 95% of breached records came from only three industries in 2016

Government, retail, and technology. The reason isn’t necessarily because those industries are less diligent in their protection of customer records. They’re just very popular targets because of the high level of personal identifying information contained in their records.

2. There is a hacker attack every 39 seconds

A Clark School study at the University of Maryland is one of the first to quantify the near-constant rate of hacker attacks of computers with Internet access— every 39 seconds on average, affecting one in three Americans every year —and the non-secure usernames and passwords we use that give attackers more chance of success.

3. 43% of cyber attacks target small business

64% of companies have experienced web-based attacks. 62% experienced phishing & social engineering attacks. 59% of companies experienced malicious code and botnets and 51% experienced denial of service attacks. small organizations (those with fewer than 500 employees) spend an average of $7.68 million per incident.

4. The global average cost of a data breach is $3.9 million across SMBs

For most businesses this is sum is crippling – not only monetarily but in reputation. For public companies, the cost is much greater since more is at stake, on average a data breach at a publicly-traded company would cost $116 million.

5. Since COVID-19, the US FBI reported a 300% increase in reported cybercrimes

As if a pandemic wasn’t scary enough, hackers leveraged the opportunity to attack vulnerable networks as office work moved to personal homes. As of this summer, they recorded 12,377 Covid-related scams.

6. 9.7 Million Records healthcare records were compromised in September 2020 alone

According to the HIPAA Journal, “83 breaches were attributed to hacking/IT incidents and 9,662,820

7. Human intelligence and comprehension is the best defense against phishing attacks

According to Cofense thwarting phishing attempts comes down to user behavior and understanding is the best way to protect your business against some of the most common hacking methods.

Source: Cybint Solutions