A good cybersecurity platform is your first line of defense against breaches and attacks. That said, choosing a commercial level security solution can be very overwhelming and difficult to understand. There are hundreds of solutions, each with a different angle on information security.
Businesses of every size and industry are vulnerable to cyber threats. Having a strong cybersecurity strategy in place to defend your organization against these threats, and recover quickly to avoid downtime, is an absolute must when it comes to the success of your business. Security should be one of the top priorities of senior management.
Data breaches can be frightening; they result in financial loss, loss of customer trust, and their effects can be felt for years. According to Ponemon’s latest Cost of a Data Breach report, one-third of data breach costs occur more than one year after an incident.
A data breach is ANY incident where data is stolen or taken from a system without the knowledge or consent of the system’s owner.
Data breaches may be the result of intentional or unintentional actions by employees or deliberate, malicious attacks by outsiders.
Advanced persistent threats most often target medium to large businesses. Any medium to large business, without a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, is at risk of an advanced persistent attack (APT).
APTs typically affect organizations in industries such as defense, finance, logistics, large retail, supply chain, and manufacturing. Their goal is to gain a competitive edge, steal information or intellectual property, etc undetected over a long period rather than a single one-time data breach or cyber attack.
Related reading: Advanced Persistent Threat (APT)
Both ransonware and spyware are malicious software (also known as malware) that are considered to be cyber threats.
Ransomware is malware designed to take over your computer or device with the purpose of locking it or stealing your data. This software holds your computer or data hostage until a ransom is paid.
Spyware, on the other hand, is malware that spies on your internet usage in order to uncover your personal information and then transmits that personal information to a third party for malicious purposes.
The biggest difference is that a computer virus is usually designed to replicate itself by inserting its own code into the code of other programs undetected.
In addition, a computer virus spreads across networks with the purpose of intentionally causing damage to complete networks, servers, workstations, and will often shut a business down for an extended period of time.
Adware is one of the mosts common threats to your privacy, data, and systems.
This is malware that covers your screen or browser with pop-up ads, making your computer sluggish, your screen annoyingly cluttered, and often makes your system unusable.
This software is usually unknowingly downloaded by the user when they download something else for free, such as a game.
Phishing is the practice of claiming to be a trusted person or a well-known institution in an attempt to collect personal information or money, or in an attempt to get the user to install malware.
Phishing is an specific type of social engineering.
