For those of us who have been following security news, it's perhaps no surprise that security breaches are growing. To those who are skeptical about whether this trend is upwards or downwards, however, a new study has been released called “The Global State of Information Security Survey 2015”, authored by PwC US in conjunction with CIO and CSO magazines.
The survey has some worry-some results, admitting that security incidents have risen 48 percent this year, bringing us to a total of nearly 43 million. That's over 100 thousand attacks per day. Since 2009, this is a 66 percent increase!
Of course, when you're running a business, you also want to hear about the costs involved in these security breaches. What we're seeing is another upward trend in this department, with the average financial loss from security incidents totaling $2.7 million. That's just over 30 percent more than what was experienced through 2013. These losses gain more weight when you hear that organizations that lost more than $20 million mitigating breaches has risen 92 percent.
What does this all mean? Bob Bragdon, publisher of CSO, explains, “Large companies have been a more likely target for threat actors since they offer valuable information, and thus detect more incidents. However, as large companies implement more effective security measures, threat actors are increasing on their assaults on middle-tier companies. Unfortunately, these organizations may not yet have security practices in place to match the efficiency of large companies.”
It's also largely the excessive dependence on older software (which causes IT resources to be stretched out) that makes companies lose sight of new security practices. Instead of relying on powerful identity management services like PerfectCloud, for example, they may have some other older solution that isn't as effective and requires the IT staff to be on call 24/7 for maintenance. The biggest issue perhaps affecting larger companies these days is their insistence on sticking with what they have and sometimes unintentionally ignoring good advice from their IT administrators.
Perhaps it's time to take a look at how loosely your IT infrastructure is running and where knots can be tightened without losing too much capital. A little bit of analysis could save you from the loss of millions of dollars and the eventual loss of trust from your own customers.
Edited by Maurice Nagle
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