Sage Advice - Cybersecurity Blog

Digital privacy is an evolving, hot topic in the world right now. With the rise of ecommerce, digital marketing, online offers, and smart devices, it’s extremely difficult not to have your personal information – whether that be transactional information or information that defines you – out there. But what if we thought about it from the standpoint of your business? How can you make sure your organization is protecting individuals’ data and using best privacy practices? Let’s delve in to how you can create a privacy initiative roadmap for your organization.

As consumers, our information is everywhere. With nearly everything connected to the web, it’s nearly impossible not to have your personal data out there. Because of this, privacy is a hot topic, now, more than ever. This means that entities must take precautions to protect the valuable data they have on you so that your personal data is not stolen.

Digital privacy is an evolving topic that is increasingly part of the cybersecurity discussion. Private information is transmitted in nearly every interaction of every day, from digital habits such as app and website uTyler, to purchases, to driving habits. Looking back at recent data breaches, it’s interesting that the largest breaches didn’t involve stolen credit card or social security numbers. Instead personal information is being stolen in large quantities. This private information is not only extremely valuable to us as individuals, but it’s becoming increasingly attractive for cybercriminals as well.

State-sponsored cyberattacks from national agencies or affiliates are a rising concern. Even though U.S. cyber-responses have become more prevalent, foreign hackers still pose a powerful threat, given the ever-changing threat landscape and heightened abilities of these adversaries.

In the current cyber threat environment, organizations must be vigilant. Vigilance begins with preparation. Being prepared starts with being aware. To be successful, you need to develop cybersecurity awareness throughout your entire organization, which leads to organizational practices that support the secure execution of your business strategy. You need to create a culture of cybersecurity.

Ransomware attacks can have devastating consequences for organizations. Downtime is often more detrimental than ransom costs. Recovery is expensive, and there is a significant cost in system disruption, emergency response, and reputation damage.

Ransomware continues to be a significant threat to organizations of all sizes. Victims of an attack are denied access to their data. Many times, files are encrypted, and a ransom is demanded to restore access. If hit, the best-case scenario is that you have clean backups to restore your systems and can avoid paying the ransom.  However, downtime is often more detrimental than ransom costs. Recovery is expensive, and there is a significant cost in system downtime, emergency response, and reputation damage.

Local governments and school districts are falling victim to ransomware attacks with alarming frequency and devastating consequences. At any organization, having tools in place to improve cyber resilience is a necessity, especially as hackers get more sophisticated every day.

The epic Target breach raised our awareness that third-party service providers are a significant cybersecurity risk. It showed us how an employee at an HVAC vendor could click a phishing link and result in 40 million credit / debit card numbers and 70 million customer and employee records being compromised.

Like everything in technology today, the activities of cybercriminals are constantly evolving. Your organization must keep pace to protect your data and your reputation. The place most clients are with this query is, “What are our peers doing?”