Technology Analysts forecast that organizations will not be able to cope with the increasing pace of cybercrimes. The damage from cybercrimes is expected to reach $6 trillion in 2021. On the other hand, the average global annual spend on cybersecurity products and services in 2019 was around $124 billion. It is good to see that organizations dedicate budget for cybersecurity, but the key question do they spend it in the right way?!
Cybercriminals and hackers are working hard and being creative in using machine learning to send messages to fake employees hoping to compromise their organization’s systems. Furthermore, experts expect that the cybercrime will increase in targeting rich individuals and profitable SMEs. Cybercriminals are using different tactics, e.g. ransomware, crypto-jacking, social engineering etc.
Ransomware attack depends on blocking the users or businesses from accessing their files, systems or services until the victims pay money to the attackers. However, in crypto-jacking the attackers usually send email with a link or attachment and upon clicking a script will be downloaded and run in the background. The other scenario of crypto-jacking attack is through the web browser when the user visits infected website. In both scenarios, the script will run in the background and utilize the system (PC, tablet, servers, etc.) resources to run complex coin mining operations and send the result to the attacker machine. It is costly attack because it slows the performance of the machine, causes system overheat and utilizes most of the processing capacity. Though ransomware and crypto-jacking attacks are on the rise but the most widespread attack method on both individuals and organizations nowadays is social engineering because it targets the weakness that exists in every organization which is PEOPLE. People are the driving force for any organization but as well could be a breach for cybersecurity attacks. In social engineering, the attackers trick the individuals to provide access to sensitive information about them or their organizations and will be used later on by the attackers in the cybercrimes. Also, sponsored state cyber-attacks become common in the recent years by using cybersecurity skills to penetrate other governments and attack their critical infrastructure.
Investing in latest cybersecurity products to improve organization or government defenses is important but equally important to ensure the cybersecurity awareness among the people of the organization or the nation. Through our unique change management methodology and tools at Transformation Pioneers, we can support you to develop the user behaviors for the cybersecurity needs. Visit our website, www.tpioneers.com.