Cybercrime Risk Is More Real Than Ever
25.08.20
When lockdown occurred earlier in the year, almost literally overnight, working from home morphed from an option to an outright necessity as organisations across Australia closed their offices to help combat the emerging health crisis.
The move meant that organisations had to quickly pivot their workstyles, infrastructure and hardware to accommodate the new normal. And although key focus centred around getting staff productive from home with the right technology to collaborate and work effectively, key consideration also had to be given to security.
Right now, the risk of cybercrime is more real than it has ever been before. You only have to look at a list of recent data breaches or attacks to get an understanding for the gravity of risk that the threat landscape poses. In just the last three months alone in Australia, there’s been a number of key breaches including:1
- June 2020 – Prime Minister Scott Morrison holds press conference to announce that Australia was being targeted by a sophisticated state-based cyber-attack.
- July 2020 – WA Department of Health suffers data breach with confidential patient information published online.
- August 2020 – Australian Universities investigating a concerning hack of controversial exam software.
Every day the threat landscape grows in sophistication and reach, and to maintain business integrity amidst an increasingly unpredictable digital economy, every technology decision must also be a security decision.
The numbers don’t lie
68% of business leaders say that cyber-security risks are increasing,2 and there is plenty of evidence to support this stance. Every four seconds a new malware variant appears on the internet, that’s roughly 350,000 new variants each and every day.3 From 2018 to 2019, there was a 54% annual increase in reported data breaches.4
New malware variants, or zero-day attacks as they’re also known, pose a significant risk to organisations because their makeup is unknown to traditional security measures like antivirus solutions. Zero-day attacks are 4x more deadly than their ‘known’ counterparts.5
The impact of a data breach can be significant, with the average cost of a data breach globally costing $13 million.6 That’s roughly $150 per lost or stolen record/file.7 Year-on-year, we’re seeing a 12% rise in that average cost.8 But financial implications are far from the only consequence attributed to a data breach. The effect they can have on an organisation’s reputation and ability to maintain business continuity are immense.
In fact, according to a recent study by HP, employee morale and business relations are two of the most significant forms of damage that eventuate from a data breach. Of the organisations surveyed, 47% reported a significant drop in employee morale, 38% reported a loss in business relations while 36% highlighted the damage it caused to their brand strength and market reputation.9
The battle must first be fought at the endpoint
In the same study, 64% of organisations that reported a major breach attributed its point of origin to an employee endpoint – laptop, workstation, phone or tablet.10 This can occur in a multitude of ways, from phishing attempts right through to simply clicking on a malicious weblink.
With new threats appearing every day, coupled with the large-scale proliferation of devices and a more dispersed workforce than ever that are all accessing business-sensitive information, endpoints are the first line of defence against cybercrime.
HP EliteBook PCs powered by Intel® Core™ processors are built with hardware enforced security tools designed to protect staff devices and identity, and business data at every level of the operating system.11
- HP Sure Sense – AI and machine learning works in real-time to detect and prevent zero-day threats.
- HP Sure Click – A secure browsing solution that isolates potentially malicious web content in a standalone CPU-isolated virtual machine.
- HP Sure View – Prevent visual hacking with a privacy screen that makes data visible only to the device’s user.
- HP Sure Start – The world’s only self-healing BIOS, HP Sure Start inspects the BIOS system upon start-up and automatically self-heals if the BIOS is damaged.
- HP Sure Recover – Quickly and securely restore a machine to the latest image using little more than an internet connection.
- HP Multi-Factor Authenticate – Protect your network and VPN with up to three factors of authentication for login.
For your frontline, hardware-based security tools are your strongest mode of defence. Your endpoints will continue to be targets of cybercrime, and as sophistication grows and more staff work remotely, now is the time fight back with tools designed for the battle.
At Infinet, we are a passionate and experienced team of ICT professionals who go the extra mile to protect your business’s data and reputation. Get in contact to discuss your current device requirements and get on the front foot to combat the growing threat landscape.
1 Webber Insurance Services, 2020, The Complete List of Data Breaches in Australia for 2018, 2019 And 2020. https://www.webberinsurance.com.au/data-breaches-list#twenty
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11HP Development Company, L.P. 2019, How To Plan For Endpoint Security Against Ever-Evolving Cyberthreats, 4AA7-6415ENW, November 2019
10 HP Development Company, L.P. 2019, How To Plan For Endpoint Security Against Ever-Evolving Cyberthreats, 4AA7-6415ENW, November 2019