Keeping up with cybersecurity is a worldwide challenge. In Beyond Trust’s 2017 Federal Cybersecurity Threat Survey Report, 42% of 105 senior IT professionals had experienced a data breach in the last six months and one in eight had experienced a data breach in the last month. The average costs of these data breaches are more than $91,000, while the highest profile breaches can run into the millions of dollars in damages.

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in security software, stated that cyber espionage is the most serious threat concern to global businesses in 2017.Twenty percent of global organizations rank cyber espionage as the most serious threat to their business, with 26% struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving threat landscape. In addition, one in five U.S. organizations have suffered a cyber espionage-related attack in the last year. Trend Micro’s research covered over 2,400 organizations across the U.S. and Europe.

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.

Centralized higher education labs were once a standard and necessary offering. Now, an increasing number of higher education students have personal computers to support their studies, and they expect the higher education institutions they attend to provide appropriate security and privacy for the personal information they share with the institution. With the plethora of connected devices, Colleges and Universities must consider the numerous points of potential vulnerability. Colleges and Universities are one of the most frequently attacked organizations due to the nature of their networks. Most higher education institutions have a non-centralized security platform making it difficult to detect possible breaches or intrusions to the network. Even if a possible breach could efficiently be detected, the non-centralized security platform makes it difficult for the institution to determine exactly where the breach originated or how it occurred.

When internet usage first matriculated into the mainstream, few people predicted that soon, everyday items would be connected to the web. Today, we are closer to this reality than ever before with the internet of things (IoT) emerging into the marketplace controlling household thermostats, security systems, and much more. The IoT is the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other internet-enabled devices/systems4. Cloud based computing has helped to accelerate the proliferation of the IoT. This technology consists of physical devices, vehicles, appliances, and other items that are embedded with software, sensors, and computing systems. Such matrixed connectivity gives devices the ability to communicate data to various end points1. The Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things (IoT-GSI) branded the IoT as “the infrastructure of the information society.” They arrived at this definition based on the technology’s potential to allow everyday items to communicate vital data to networks and other devices in real-time. This innovation is poised to revolutionize many industries and to bring automation closer to a reality. One of the most notable applications for the IoT is to assist driverless cars in communicating with each other as well as with their environments2. With such substantial technological potential, theIoTlso poses significant security concerns.

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.

In four countries in 2016, 40% of businesses were hit by ransomware, of which, 30% lost revenue and a further 20% had to cease operations.[1] Ransomware is a form of malicious software that restricts access to your computer systems or files and demands that a ransom is paid between the restriction to be removed. The 2016 State of Ransomware report surveyed 540 CIOs, CISOs, and IT directors. The survey was conducted in four countries, 54% of the businesses in the United Kingdom were hit by ransomware, 47% in the United States, 35% in Canada and Germany concluded the four with 18%.

Cybercrime is one of the most severe threats facing businesses and government agencies today. The Ponemon Institute calculated that the average annual cost of cyber crime across 56 organizations in 2012 was $8.9 million. This number has undoubtedly increased over the past five years. The institute also revealed that two-thirds of organizations admitted that their own defenses were insufficient to thwart a targeted cyber attack. This raises a serious question:If organizations know that cyber crime is increasing, why do they still not have sufficient defense protocols in place to protect themselves?

One of the most frequent questions tech industry insiders get from those working outside of the industry is “What is the cloud?” It remains an enigma to many people across the world. Even some within the tech industry are unsure of how exactly to define the cloud. In essence, cloud computing uses a network of Internet-based servers to store, manage, and process data. This practice is vastly different from the traditional use of local servers and personal computer hard drives.