Cybersecurity is a critical concern for every business, regardless of size, industry, or location. At the recent 2019 RSA Conference focused on security, Alien Vault conducted cybersecurity research to get a better understanding of the current cybersecurity climate and top industry concerns.
The result of that research has been released in a comprehensive report. Here we look at some highlights and areas of interest:
Top Internal Cyber Security Concerns:
When it comes to which internal threats are keeping business owners up at might, phishing takes the top spot with nearly a third of respondents citing it as a primary concern. Phishing can come in the form of an email scam or an unscrupulous claim used to gain internal trust. No matter the format, IT security pros name it their top cybersecurity concern of 2019.
In second place is ransomware with almost 20 percent of survey respondent citing this form of cyberterrorism as a major concern. Ransomware blew onto the scene over the last few years and remains firmly ensconced in our cybersecurity vernacular. What scares businesses the most about ransomware is that once a system has been compromised, it is impossible to hide that fact. Even if recovery is swift, in many ways, the damage is already done.
Approximately 16 percent of those responding to the survey noted social media as a worry, and just over 14 percent cited a lack of skilled staff as another issue they stress over. Social media has become a bit of a cybersecurity wild card — an unmanaged source of risk that can have major consequences.
Top External Cyber Security Concerns:
When it comes to external cybersecurity worries, cloud security concerns took the top spot. While cloud security is an oft-discussed topic, it is still an area of IT that is fairly new to many companies, hence nearly 30 percent noting it as a critical worry.
In second and third place, we see distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and Internet of Things (IoT) attacks, with 18.8 and 17.4 percent, respectively. Nation states follows closely behind with a response of 16.8 percent, and lack of dark web visibility comes in at just over 11 percent.
Are any of these internal and external cybersecurity concerns keeping you awake at night? If so, contact us to learn more about protecting your network from a wide range of attacks.
