Fearing Hackers: Why Your Cybersecurity is in Trouble

By now, you should already know the severity of having your network’s cybersecurity breached, but if you don’t, here are the top-5 reasons you should fear online hackers.

Hackers’ Skill and Knowledge

Think about it, you have a job and it is something you spend the majority of your time doing. If it is a specific skill or craft, you build upon your own experience each and every day — the same goes for online hackers. Every day, there are hackers that are trying to bypass the work of cybersecurity companies and, just like anyone else doing the same thing day after day, they get better at it. Hackers know the best ways to penetrate servers through malware, disguise their identity, access a network from an inside device and pay attention to software updates to attempt a zero-day breach.

Neglectful Defense Is Not a Cybersecurity Offense

If your company isn’t constantly revamping their defense tactics, hackers might find access points as you continue to update your servers but not your cybersecurity. When a company arrogantly neglects their cybersecurity but thinks they are okay because they are following the compliance guidelines, they may find themselves in a world of trouble.

So far, the first two reasons may not seem especially significant, but that might just be because of your lack of knowledge with security threats; these next few may grab your attention a little bit more.

Breaches Cause Financial Loss

Cyber attacks may not seem real until you feel the effects personally, but you may want to learn from the statistics of other companies that did not prevent breaches. Cybersecurity companies and companies that have been breached like Marriott, Yahoo, JP Morgan, eBay, and more — can all tell you how detrimental a breach may be, but you do not just have to look at the big names, you can just look at the average cost of a data breach for U.S. companies: $7.9 million. If it still seems unlikely, just realize that there were over 668 million breaches made in 2018 and 1.5 billion the year before that.

How Much Does Your Reputation Cost?

What do you think happens to a company that has a cybersecurity issue? Do people just turn their heads and continue doing business with them as if nothing happened? That is unlikely. Further, if your company is breached and still manages to stay alive after the setbacks, will people want to do business with a company that could not protect their customer’s personal information? Will people want to work for a company that may have had to lay off a large amount in order to pay for the damages from the breach? Again, this is unlikely.

Company Shuts Down

The absolute number one fear of a company being breached is the chance that the damage is too great and there is no overcoming the online hacker. Without a reliable cybersecurity company, this can most definitely happen.

These five fears are something to really consider — admitting to having some healthy fear is okay, it doesn’t mean that you have to lose all thoughts and feelings of hope. For example, it’s probably okay to fear a bear in the woods because you will likely implement defense tactics to keep yourself safe! It is the same with cybersecurity. You can hire a cybersecurity company to not only metaphorically, but also digitally, create a fortress for you to escape online threats. Through products like Fortinet’s SIEM solution managed by managed IT companies like us, you can confidently combat some of that fear and breath a little easier. For more information about what we can do for you, check out our services today.