Cyber attacks cost businesses a lot of money, an average of £2.9 million per company. And with there being so many different methods that cyberattacks can take form in, the world of cybercrime is only getting bigger.
While cybercriminals don’t usually discriminate between industries and just target the ones that they think they will profit from the most, there are still some industries that are more vulnerable than others.
Within this article, we will discuss the top three most at-risk industries and sectors that are prone to cyber attacks and breaches this year, and what can be done to prevent them from happening.
What Is A Cyber Security Threat?
We hear the phrases ‘data breach’ and ‘security breach’ all the time, but what exactly do they mean? Simply put, it is a security incident where private and sensitive information is accessed without authorisation.
This information can then be used in a variety of different ways to benefit the hackers including viewing the information, copying and transmitting it, or selling it on to make money.
And with technology advancing at such a fast rate, more and more of our information has been moving to the digital world. As a result of this, cyber-attacks and security breaches have unfortunately become increasingly common and costly.
The Cost Of A Breach
Before we dive into the specifics of the most targeted industries, we will firstly start by discussing how much a security breach can cost.
It’s very clear that one of the main impacts of a security breach – aside from the loss of sensitive information – is the financial impact. To determine the cost of a security breach there are several factors that you need to keep in mind.
Direct Costs
These are the expenses that come directly after a detected breach. They include costs and factors such as sales and operational disruption, financial theft, legal costs, drops in stock prices, investigation costs, regulatory fines, extortion payments, public relations costs, credit monitoring and reimbursement costs, and settlement costs.
Indirect Costs
These consist of long-term effects that come after the security breach has been detected and dealt with. They include communication with data subjects, regulators, legal experts, and regulatory consultants to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.
Indirect costs also include having to deal with, and try to recover, brand damage after the breach. This could include offers and discounts to restore faith and improve reputation to customers and affected personnel.
Each and every data breach happens in a different way and does a different amount of damage. This means that they each need to be dealt with in a different manner, making it difficult to estimate the cost of the damage.
There are, however, some key factors and costs that can be integrated into most security breaches including:
- Loss of competitiveness and consumer confidence
- The number of affected people as each person affected by the breach needs to be compensated.
- Declines in productivity and profit.
- The previous history of security incidents as laws, standards, and regulations have stricter rules for businesses that suffer from more than one breach during a specified time period.
- Breaches that are detected and fixed in less than 6 months cost, on average, a third less than breaches that last over 6 months.
- The more tools, systems, and devices an organisation has the more that it will cost to remedy the breach.
3 Of The Most At-Risk Industries For Cyber Attacks
Cybercriminals know exactly who to target, and with more and more types of crime becoming easier to carry out, even those with little to no programming skills can easily acquire ransomware attack kits available on the dark web and carry them out.
And although the media likes to focus primarily on larger cyber-attacks such as the breaches at Netflix due to how much they cost and how many people are affected, the most frequent threats have been to small and medium-sized businesses.
In fact, due to this industry experts say that 60 per cent of small to medium-sized businesses will fail within 6 months as a result of a cyber-attack which can include anything from phishing scams and malware attacks.
Trends have also shown that there are three industries that are most often targeted, and they include healthcare, financial services and government services.
Healthcare
The healthcare industry is realising that they need to spend more money on internet security, but due to the fact that workers schedules are so busy and new threats being uncovered every day, it’s difficult to know where an organisation would be better off investing their budget.
The real problem within the healthcare industry is not cyber threats, but the fact that most healthcare organisations that are highly vulnerable to these kinds of cyber-attacks are not equipped well to defend themselves.
But why do cybercriminals attack healthcare industries? Well for starters patients’ confidential data that’s worth a lot of money to hackers who can sell it on easily – making the industry a very fast-growing target.
Also, medical devices are seen as easy entry points for attackers. These devices have been designed with a purpose in mind, like monitoring heart rates or dispensing drugs, not with security. And although the devices themselves may not store the patient data that attackers pursue, they can be used to launch an attack on a server that does hold valuable information.
Financial Services
Financial services, hedge funds, and investment firms, including banks, are all-time favourites for cyber hackers. And even though financial organisations consistently spend the most out of all other sectors on cybersecurity staff, preventive measures, tools and associated investments, the cyber hits just keep coming.
The most common types of cybercrimes that are used to attack the financial sector are server attacks, data theft and some ransomware cases. These attack types are coherent with the cyber criminal’s motivations in targeting organisations that move money around a lot.
Contrary to popular belief, getting banks to a complete stop is not necessarily the goal here for most attackers. Instead, they wish to access internal systems that can yield hefty returns, highlighting the need for robust banking cybersecurity.
Government Services
Needless to say, government agencies have a lot of confidential information about all the citizens and population of their nation. Some types of this sensitive information includes location information, fingerprints, names and addresses, and much more.
Since there is so much information, what exactly do cybercriminals target? Unfortunately, all servers and databases, including the ones operated by government agencies, are prone to known vulnerabilities. There are quite a few reasons as to why government sectors are targeted so much including:
- Government IT and security teams are faced with a “do more with less” challenge – they don’t always have the bandwidth or budget to address and secure all the different types of threats.
- The government is at the heart of so many different sectors which means attacks could come from anywhere at any time.
- The government has a huge reliance on third parties and contractors which makes it very easy for cybercriminals to find flaws in and access the systems easily that way.
Addressing The Issue Of Cybercrime
Cybercrime is always on the rise and unfortunately, no matter how many preventive measures are put in place, hackers will always find ways to get around them. They will continue to implement new techniques or exploit vulnerabilities resulting from failures to update software or implement a stronger antivirus system.
So how can we stop them? There is no one way to try and protect your business or organisation from becoming a target for hackers, but there are some safety measures that you can implement within your system in a bid to try and reduce the risk.
Back up your data
Backing up your business’s data and website will help you recover any information you lose if you experience a cyber incident or have computer issues, which is why it is essential that you back up your most important data and information regularly.
Use strong passwords
This includes not repeating the same password on multiple sites and changing them every so often to decrease the chance of them being guessed or hacked.
Keep your software updated
Cybercriminals frequently use known exploits, or flaws in software are used as an entry point to access your system and data. Keeping your software updated can help patch up these flaws so it’s harder for you to become a victim.
Consider cyber security insurance
The cost of dealing with a cyber-attack can be much more than just repairing databases, strengthening security or replacing laptops, as we discussed above. Cyber liability insurance cover can help your business with the costs of recovering from an attack. Before purchasing a policy, do make sure that you read all the terms and conditions so you know exactly what your business is coved for.
Never click on unfamiliar ads or links
Staff and employees will receive lots of emails on a daily basis. Some of these may contain malicious malware or computer worms that will attack your system. That’s why it is important to train your staff on how to be safe online, and let them know to never click on unfamiliar ads or links.
Set up a firewall
A firewall is a piece of software or hardware that sits between your computer and the internet. It acts as the gatekeeper for all incoming and outgoing traffic. Setting up a firewall will protect your business’s internal networks, but do need to be regularly patched in order to do their job.
