Cybersecurity threats have been on the rise. In under a decade, cybersecurity has emerged as one of the most important systemic issues for the global economy.
Many companies were charged with huge fines and went to court for not having proper users-data protection, which put them under cyber-attack and led to the leaking of their user’s data.
Cybersecurity is now recognized as one of the most important technologies that any company should invest in. With what happened to Uber recently, here’s why as a business owner you should invest in securing your business.
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What Is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is a series of processes to protect your business and your sensitive data from any cyber-attacks and data breaches.
Over the years, we have witnessed many companies get cyber attacked as cyber attacks are increasing these days and hackers are becoming more familiar with the traditional security control and methods.
A loss of data for a company could lead to its end and all the hard work could be lost over a small security mistake.
Why Do Businesses Need More Security Measures?
As we mentioned earlier, cyber attacks are increasing lately, especially since everything is being digitalized. All businesses and data are backed up on a cloud or similar services.
Also, did you know that as a company, if you were cyber-attacked and lost data, you are required to pay around 4.35 million dollars?
In fact, a few days ago, Uber went through a similar situation as someone hacked it.
So, cybersecurity could protect your business from all these possible threats and can even help you spot the weak points in your security system.
Main Cybersecurity Threats:
- Ransomware – attackers encrypt an organization’s data and require payment to restore access
- Cryptojacking – when cybercriminals secretly use a victim’s computing power to generate cryptocurrency
- Threats against data – data breaches/leaks
- Malware – a software, which triggers a process that affects a system
- Disinformation/misinformation – the spread of misleading information
- Non-malicious threats – human errors and misconfigurations of a system
- Threats against availability and integrity – attacks that prevent the users of a system from accessing their information
- Email-related threats – aims at manipulating people to fall victims to an email attack
- Supply chain threats – attacking, for example, a service provider, in order to gain access to a customer’s data
What Happened With Uber?
A few days ago, Uber was under a cyber breach and it was the talk of everyone and every media outlet.
Some attacks are successful because hackers are able to take advantage of the network and operating system security vulnerabilities, but in Uber’s hacking case, the attacker was able to leverage social engineering.
The hack into Uber’s database took place on September 15, 2022, and involved a compromised Uber external account that led to internal servers being accessed.
According to Uber, the hacker then “accessed several other employee accounts which ultimately gave the attacker elevated permissions to a number of tools, including G-Suite and Slack”, then “posted a message to a company-wide Slack channel…and reconfigured Uber’s OpenDNS to display a graphic image to employees on some internal sites”.
Uber was hacked by a 17-year-old-boy who leaked 90 videos, including early development footage of the GTA 6 game from Rockstar. Uber then later released a statement that there was no evidence that the hacker had access to the users’ sensitive data.
Uber launched an investigation into the “cybersecurity incident” and 2 days ago, it was announced that the authorities have arrested the hacker.
How Can You Protect Your Business Against Cyber Attacks
IT experts at giant companies can take the opportunity to evaluate their organizations’ risks. Where are the vulnerabilities? Also, there are some cybersecurity tips and practices that you can implement to secure your business from hackers.
First of all, you have to keep your software always updated to upgrade the security, fix the bugs, and add new features.
Start using a secure solution for file-sharing. If you always share confidential data about your business and clients, then it is important to use a tool that can encrypt sensitive files so you don’t worry about a data breach.
Only use websites that use HTTPS to guarantee that the transferred information between you and the website is secured.
Always have a backup of your data! A security breach can result in losing important data, and the only solution to avoid this loss is always to have a backup.
Have you ever heard of the term “White Hacker”? A white hacker can be one of your employees to help find the risks you never knew about that can put your business in danger.
Make sure your employees are aware of the rules and are always exercising cybersecurity practices as one mistake from one could lead to a catastrophe.
In your opinion, how do you think companies can secure their system against any cyber-attack?
