What are the biggest threats to your year ahead? Brexit red tape? Home schooling? Another year without a holiday? A nagging sense of déjà vu perhaps? But what about cybersecurity? No? Nothing?! Well, according to the World Economic Forum, there are five cybersecurity threats facing businesses and society in 2021. Intellesec examines these cyber risks and explains how you can take proactive steps to protect your business.
According to the government’s Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020, just one in ten UK businesses invested in threat intelligence last year. Even among large businesses, a mere 37% of organisations paid for threat intelligence. That’s despite the fact that nearly half of all businesses surveyed (46%) reported cybersecurity breaches or attacks within the previous 12 months and one in five (19%) losing money or data as a result.
Small to medium businesses (SMBs) need to do more to protect themselves. But with countless more immediate concerns affecting business owners, it’s easy to see how cybersecurity can fall down the pecking order of priorities. But become priorities it must if business leaders are to stave off the cyber risks cited by the World Economic Forum, as part of their annual meeting of world leaders in Davos, Switzerland.
5 biggest cybersecurity threats
Here are the five biggest cybersecurity threats likely to affect businesses and society in 2021:
1. More complex cybersecurity challenges
The “blurring line between digital and physical domains” means that cybersecurity will be more important than ever this year. Organisations will need to incorporate “cybersecurity features, principles and frameworks” to protect themselves from the ever-present risk of cyber-attacks and subsequent data breaches.
2. Fragmented and complex regulations
The balance of complying with regulations like GDPR and maintaining robust cybersecurity will continue to challenge SMBs in 2021. Regulations can cause “fragmented” and “conflicting” priorities for business owners, who have to “defend and protect against attacks while they also seek to comply with complex regulations”.
3. Dependence on other parties
Businesses are increasingly dependent on a small number of providers for their technology. The “ecosystem is only as strong as its weakest link” as the Forum points out. This provides entry points for cybercriminals, which means SMBs need to ensure they have “an acceptable level of visibility and understanding of digital assets”.
4. Lack of cybersecurity expertise
Ransomware is the fastest growing cyber-attack. The advice is to “presume you will get hit, back up IT resources and data, make sure there is continuity of operations in disruptions to computer systems”. Businesses that bolster their cybersecurity infrastructure are the most likely to succeed in 2021.
5. Difficulty tracking cyber criminals
The likelihood of a cybercriminal being detected and prosecuted in the US is thought to be as low as 0.05% and could be even lower in other countries. Lawmakers can help by “working with cybercrime experts to establish internationally accepted criteria for attribution, evidence, and cooperation in pursuing cyber criminals”.
Protect your business from cyber risks
Running an successful business requires a lot of plate spinning. Cybersecurity is a complex area but not one that business owners can afford to ignore. As the points above illustrate, there are countless cyber threats facing modern businesses. Intellesec, with its wealth of experience and expertise can help strengthen your security posture, whether it’s deploying Palo Alto Next Generation Firewalls, protecting your endpoints, simulating a breach and attack scenario or training your staff to spot those crafty phishing emails; let us help protect your business from damaging attacks.
For more information about any of our leading cyber security solutions, or to discuss your requirements in more detail, please contact Intellesec today on 0116 3266123 or email hello@intellesec.co.uk.
