How often companies are hacked, how often it impacts you & how to prepare for the inevitable:
Bottom Line: So what percentage of companies do you think were compromised by hackers in 2016? If you guessed 20% you're right. Cisco System's produced their annual Cybersecurity Report & it turns out it was much worse than most even realized. Not all hacks and data breaches are equitable obviously but the pervasiveness of success is alarming. 3,000 different large companies contributed to this year's survey demonstrating that it's a clear a present threat to all of corporate America and frankly to you given that your info is likely with several companies and governments.
The Cisco report is geared for businesses so it speaks to the threat from that perspective but it's instructive for all of us to understand the significance of that attacks:
- 29% of successful hacks resulted in loss of revenue from the companies affected
- 23% lost future business opportunities
- 22% lost existing customers
So there's certainly a message in here about the importance for smaller businesses to protect their customers data from outside threats (one breach could potentially put a small business under based on this data) but also for individuals. These days you don't have to be personally compromised in order to become a victim of stolen data and/or ID theft. Think about how many different companies and governments have your personal information? Given that all information is stored online all that has to happen is just one of them to be compromised in a way that exposes your info to the wrong people. One of the biggest mistakes people make is by thinking that if they don't access an account online - their info isn't online and that's not the case.
Direct ID theft is every bit the threat it's been but "passive" ID theft has become a significant threat as well.