With a regular increase in cybercrimes, strong cybersecurity awareness has become a necessity. Cybersecurity is crucial in today’s tech-focused world to protect sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, tax and transaction records, intellectual property, and industrial system information. With cyber threats being ever-prevalent, having strong cybersecurity for incident response breach handling is an excellent idea for a multitude of reasons.
#1. Cybersecurity Awareness Helps Avoid Scams
Most workers lack knowledge of data privacy and cybersecurity. In fact, 90% of data breach is a result of human error. Cybercriminals are aware of this fact and are growing more sophisticated, often targeting employees through scams to hack into servers and steal data.
Social engineering is an easy cyber attack tactic. Ransomware, spyware, and phishing are a few of the many ways cybercriminals attack an organization. A culture of cybersecurity awareness in your employees means your employees abide by safe online computing rules and use strong passwords.
You can train your employees through education modules to get them up to speed on the organization’s IT protocols and policies. You can also spread awareness about potential attack vectors. Cybersecurity awareness is the first line of cyber defence.
This isn’t limited to your employees. Your third-party vendors with poor cybersecurity protocols are another target. As such, vendor risk management is a necessity.
#2. Data Leaks Are a Growing Threat
As our society grows more technologically reliant every day, there’s no sign of data breaching slowing down anytime soon either. Data leaks are often publicly posted on social media and could result in identity theft. Since sensitive information such as social insurance numbers (SIN), card information, and bank details are often stored on cloud services such as Drive and Dropbox, cybersecurity is the need of the hour.
This data breach rule isn’t limited to multinationals either. Even individuals with small businesses are targeted for data leaks regularly. Hence, understanding the difference between information security and cybersecurity is crucial as well.
Additionally, following government regulations properly can help protect data. Abiding PIPEDA legislation helps secure information handling incident response breach. Rules set by GDPR for the EU such as anonymizing data for privacy can be implemented as well.
#3. Cybercrimes Can Destroy Integrity
The biggest loss you can suffer from not having cybersecurity and having your sensitive business data leaked is the loss of client and employee trust. A history of data breaches may also turn away potential investors. This loss of reputation and integrity is a huge blow for any business. Leaking of social insurance numbers and cloud storage passwords translates to poor media coverage.
Businesses also lose trade secrets due to their lack of cyber defence, which can affect your relationship with vendors and other businesses. If you want to avoid PR financial and reputational disasters, then focus on cybersecurity awareness and incident response breach training.
#4. Cost to Handle Cybercrimes Is Rising
Data leaks not only cost your business its integrity, but it’s a huge loss from a financial point of view. In fact, cybercrimes cost Canada over $3 billion a year, and the average cost of a data breach in Canadian organizations is $4.5 million.
This includes loss of clients, which cuts your revenue sources. Lack of cybersecurity is also a huge liability and clients can sue for major liability lawsuits. Intellectual property theft also halts your work and projects, causing economic loss. Lastly, you can suffer from regulatory fines and sanctions.
Combine this with the fact that 78% of Canadian companies face at least one cyber attack annually, and you have the best argument to make an investment in cybersecurity.
