Cyber thieves are lurking. Cyber thieves are stealing. Facts. The big question is how are you responding to, and preventing this imminent threat?
Digital fraud is a problem businesses have been facing since the advent of e-commerce in the 1990s, and its threat only increases with each passing year. Experian found that losses from fraudulent identities increased from 51% in 2017 to 57% in 2019. According to PwC, these identity crimes cost companies $42 billion in the last 24 months.
Forty-two billion dollars…
Needed: Several Ounces of Prevention
According to Ponemon, 82% of cybersecurity expenditures go toward post-hoc measures, such as detection, containment, and recovery. Only 18% of budgets are invested in prevention – yet financial figures may not be the most important factor in maintaining digital resilience in 2021.
Last year enterprises had to quickly adopt new ‘game rules’: employees shifted to remote work, reliance on digital tools grew, and vulnerability to cyberattacks soared. As the ‘new normal’ is here to stay, stakeholders should make cybersecurity a priority to ensure a stable and accessible working environment.
Chief Technology Officer of NordVPN Teams, Juta Gurinaviciute, says, “Cyber-attacks usually happen in grey zones that are either neglected or completely forgotten. Those can be related to outdated infrastructure, vulnerable software, or a simple human error – hackers constantly are looking for weak spots on your company’s network, and in times of remote work those are difficult to facilitate.”
“Resilience to digital threats lies not only in the most advanced security technologies but also in the cybersecurity culture of a company. It depends on the examples set by senior executives, functioning security policies, and all-encompassing awareness by every employee,” says Gurinaviciute.
Fraud Is Skyrocketing, Right Now
Security Magazine reports that opportunistic hackers are taking advantage of the chaotic, global crisis to commit even more fraudulent activity. Tactics include stealing stimulus checks and unemployment benefits, collecting payments for fake COVID-19 treatments, tricking Americans into donating to fraudulent charities, and more. In fact, there were 1.1 billion fraud attacks in the first half of 2020, which is double the attack volume compared to the second half of 2019.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans have lost $145 million to fraud related to COVID-19.
One of the vulnerabilities has to do with the high number of organizations (45%) adopting new technology or contracting with a new vendor to enable remote work due to Covid-19. However, only 40% of small enterprises have implemented a working cybersecurity policy. 
To-Do: Commit to Greater Cybersecurity
Just because you can’t see the criminals who want to steal from you, it does not mean that you can also pretend they do not exist. They do exist and they’re relentless. To protect against them, work to improve your team’s digital hygiene. Many business owners and managers are so focused on external threats, they often overlook the role their own employees play in exposing vulnerabilities from inside an organization.
Did you know that one in four employees admits that they use the same password for all their online accounts? Ouch. The actual number is likely quite a bit higher.
In the video above, you can hear about NordVPN’s password manager. That’s one solution, but however you go about it, take your password management seriously—make each one unique and impossible to remember.
