The threat landscape has seen the rise of hacktivism and the quest for greater profits from crime. This has given rise to advanced persistent threats (APTs), one of the most covert targeted attacks employed by cybercriminals.

The global financial services industry continues to come under siege by increasingly sophisticated cyber-attacks.Nearly 50 percent of global financial companies have suffered a breach as reported by the 2017 Thales Data Threat Report[1]. The impact is costly since on average financial companies globally will likely incur over $6 million for a single data breach.

When data breaches, data loss, and other cybersecurity concerns are the topic of discussion, outside threats tend to dominate. However, insider threats have recently come to the forefront as the greatest risk to businesses today. In a recent Veriato Insider Threat Spotlight Report, it was discovered that 62% of over 260,000 security professionals have seen an increase in insider threats in the last 12 months while 12% are unsure.

In May 2017, WannaCry caused mayhem, infecting more than 300,000 computers, and produced excessive losses. “The estimated damage caused by WannaCry in just the initial 4 days would exceed a billion dollars, looking at the massive downtime caused for large organizations worldwide”, says Stu Sjouwerman, founder, and CEO at KnowBe4, a company that specializes in training employees on how to detect and respond to ransomware attacks. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts Global ransomware damage costs will exceed $5 billion in 2017, up from $325 million in 2015.

Worldwide spending on cybersecurity is predicted to exceed $1 trillion for the five-year period from 2017 to 2021. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts global annual cybercrime costs will grow from $3 trillion in 2015 to $6 trillion annually by 2021, which includes damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm.[1]With the growing complexity and presence of technology, the cost to protect important company information and information assets has also increased.

In June of 2015, a survey of 2000 consumers in the U.S. and the U.K. was conducted by Telesign.It was discovered that around 40% had “a security incident” in 2014, meaning they had an account hacked, or password stolen, or were given notice that their personal information had been compromised. It certainly does not help that 73% of the consumers surveyed use duplicate passwords, – many of which have not been changed in five years or more.[1] However, along with a better approach to using stronger and unique passwords, two-factor authentication (sometimes called dual/multi-factor authentication or multi-step verification) can provide the needed protection. According to Symantec, 80% of cyber-breaches could be prevented by two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication is an authentication method to make multiple checks that an identity is legitimate.

It is imperative that organizations and government entities are knowledgeable in securing web applications. Mis-configurations and lack of security controls can lead to information leakage, cross-site scripting, and many more vulnerabilities.

Humans are often regarded as the weakest link in a security breach. According to a study from CompTIA conducted in 2015, which surveyed people from several organizations in the United States, human error represents 52 percent of the cause of security breaches.[1] Businesses spend large amounts of money annually on security solutions but fail to properly address the human element of information security. Human error, whether accidental or malicious, can cause serious security risks or breaches.

Remaining ahead of the curb is crucial in cybersecurity. Organizations that are vulnerable to cyber-attacks must ensure their lines of protection are not outdated – falling behind in this aspect results in a loss of ground to potential hackers. There are innumerable network solutions that are currently on the market that bolster network security and help drastically reduce the risk of an attack. But as the market grows, it makes choosing a plan of defense increasingly complex, let alone selecting appropriate solutions.