As the world expands digitally, cyber security threats grow along with it. More so now than ever, organizations are under attack from external and internal threats, and no one is completely safe. Small business owners, enterprise organizations, and even the United States government must ramp up their cyber security practices in order to protect the data of end users and citizens alike. Technology has allowed us to make wide sweeping changes to how we function on a day-to-day basis, but that has also opened the doors for new threats.
Mobile devices are ever present in the modern day business, and for good reason, but each of these devices is a potential gateway for new and unseen attacks. Solutions exist to cap these endpoints, enabling network administrators to watch over the network on an active basis and ensure that data integrity is kept secure. However, without proper dialogue, products and security measures enabled, your network is vulnerable. Major news stories are published on a consistent basis regarding large enterprises and their inability to keep data accurately protected. Sony and Target are both widely recognized as having their network security compromised.
In 2014, Target was the ‘target’ of a major security breach allowing attackers to take off with a significant amount of credit card data. Target’s CEO resigned in the face of the data breach, after being employed there for 35 years (Basu, 2014). Additionally, Target saw a fall of 46% on profit following the credit card breach (McGrath, 2014). This represents significant losses for Target, and the full impact cannot even be evaluated when considering consumer confidence in your brand.
By comparison, Sony has been a target of multiple data breaches – 2011 and 2015 most notably. In 2011, Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked and details of 77 million users copied and taken, which forced Sony to relaunch their PlayStation Network while offering free product and identity theft protection services to end users (Phillips, 2016). This resulted in a substantial loss to Sony’s bottom line.
Seeing the daily headlines, leads us to ask the questions: Is my organization next? Who would target my business… and when? And most importantly can it be prevented? There is no one clear cut answer and it must be resolved by an established security practice employing technological solutions and proper dialogue.
Take action against unseen threats today; there are solutions available to your organization. Your Technologent representative is partnered with the industry leaders allowing us to offer a full set of tools and insight that enable your organization to actively monitor and detect threats and deploy cyber security solutions.
The question will constantly linger until it is faced head-on. It’s not if… it’s how long until your organization is targeted.
Thanks for reading.
-Kyle
Sources:
Basu, Eric, 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericbasu/2014/06/15/target-ceo-fired-can-you-be-fired-if-your-company-is-hacked/#1fea94287bc1
McGrath, Maggie 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2014/02/26/target-profit-falls-46-on-credit-card-breach-and-says-the-hits-could-keep-on-coming/#2537d5425e8c
Phillips, Tom 2016, http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-26-sony-admitted-the-great-psn-hack-five-years-ago-today