Why should businesses start thinking about cyber security? 11^th November 2021

In this digital age, our professional and personal lives have all begun to gravitate toward the internet. Unfortunately, due to this widespread phenomenon, we are now more exposed than ever before to invasions of privacy and fraud. Businesses are at a higher risk of cyber attacks than individuals.

Hackers are making the best use of their mischievous minds to discover and exploit vulnerabilities in the working infrastructure of several small and large businesses. As a result, tons of sensitive digital data of users, customers and organizations, including government agencies, are subjected to threat from cybercriminals.

It's more urgent to get a solid cyber security policy in place to safeguard your business from cyber-attacks. In this article, we'll go through some pointers that will help you understand the criticality of this issue and help you take the necessary actions to get it secured right away.

Let's take a look at some common cyber-attacks first.

1. Phishing:
Phishing is when a fraudster appears as somebody else to trick individuals into supplying personal information such as credit card details. Financial institutions, Banking, E-commerce sectors are at high risk from phishing.

2. Ransomware:
This type of malware attack affects a computer or server; it encrypts files and locks them down. The attacker then demands payment to restore the files to their original state. Both private and government sectors can be affected severely by ransomware.

3. Spyware:
This is when a cybercriminal installs malware on a victim's computer; it collects their internet history, credentials, bank account information, and other sensitive data.

4. Denial of Service Attack:
Also known as a DoS attack, a hacker attempts to take down a network by flooding it with traffic to avoid other people from utilizing the service.

Why should you think about getting cyber security?

• Ample resources are required to recover from a cyberattack, with the typical breach taking 55 days to resolve. This will hinder and divert time, money, and personnel resources away from the other operations of your company.

• If your company stores a lot of personal information about your consumers, you must maintain its security so that no data of even a single user gets compromised. Customers can lose trust in your company when their valuable information is at risk in a data breach, and you can face unfavourable lawsuits as a result. 41% of customers believe they will stop doing business with a firm if their data is compromised.

Statistical overview:

• Every 39 seconds, a cyber-attack occurs around the globe.

• Cybercrime will cost the globe $6 trillion by the end of 2021.

• 24,000 malicious applications are eliminated across the web every day.

• By the end of 2021, the average ransomware request will be more than $1000.

• Only 25% of businesses worldwide have their cyber security department.

The threat of cybercrime is gradually rising. Millions of records are affected each year by data breaches, and reports of violations are increasing at an alarming rate.

It's not only about data privacy or net neutrality that needs attention; a complete change in emphasis to internet security is concerning. In the long term, taking an extra step in cyber and email protection can help businesses increase their overall productivity. You can take an extra step today by getting public liability insurance in India. This will help you cover both first and third-party liabilities caused due to online attacks.

See the best public liability insurance in India HERE .

Disclaimer: The information provided above is for illustrative purposes only. To get more details, please refer to policy wordings and prospectus before purchasing a policy.