IT decision-makers lack faith in their organization’s security, according to research from Gemalto.

According to an article from CBR online, the number of global data breaches is on the increase, as reported in Gemalto’s Breach Level Index. More than 1500 data breaches leading to one billion data records compromised in 2014. This represents a 49 percent increase in data breaches and a 78 percent increase in data records lost or stolen compared to 2013.

The days when you could say, “Who would want to hack us?” have passed. The average US company endured 16,856 intrusion attempts last year.  There is a lucrative market for information about your employees, your vendors, and your customers.  Your network might provide an entry point to any company you do business with. And hackers often warm up on smaller firms, while perfecting the exploits they plan to use on the bigger guys. With hack attempts clearly on the rise, business owners need to make complete and thorough network security a top priority.

The costs were clear in Gemalto’s research: “90 percent of organizations suffered negative commercial consequences, with 31 percent seeing product deployment delays. 30 percent saw decreased employee productivity, 28 percent saw decreased customer confidence and 24 percent saw negative press.”  With cost, productivity and reputation on the line, businesses need experts to help prevent such a loss, and if it happens because securing the perimeter was not a priority you’ll need them to help clean up the mess and get you back to business as fast as possible. These are costs most companies can’t afford.

But securing the perimeter is just the beginning. 

“With the number of sophisticated breaches on the rise, relying on perimeter security systems alone is no longer enough. Traditional security staples such as firewalls and anti-virus should be part of a much greater security strategy. IT decision makers need to take into account that if someone is motivated enough they will breach a network, no matter how well it is protected,” said Tsion Gonen, Vice President of Strategy for Identity and Data Protection at Gemalto.

“A widening gap is emerging between the perception and the reality of perimeter security effectiveness amongst global IT decision makers. Gemalto research shows increasing levels of investment in this area of data protection, despite an exponential growth in the number of data breaches.”

To mitigate this risk, organizations should be adding extra layers of defense such as actively monitored intrusion prevention and disk encryption.  A higher importance needs to be placed on protecting customer data and implementing a post-breach policy for securing the data should intruders penetrate the perimeter defenses.

SLPowers brings its 30 years of IT and network management experience to bear on cyber-security. Far too often, organizations don’t fully understand the potential financial losses associated with a cybercrime event. Others simply lack the resources, expertise or desire to take a proactive approach to network security, and will only discover their vulnerabilities and begin to truly secure their environment once an attack has occurred.

Guaranteed Networks-Secure provides a comprehensive suite of security solutions that can help you navigate a new way forward and keep the hackers out.

Categories: Data Loss Prevention, Data Security, Employee Security Training, Firewalls, Hackers, Internet Security, Malware

Tags: Data Backup, data breach, Data Loss Prevention, Data Security, Hackers, information security, Network Security, security breach