You’re having your evening social media scroll, or you’re checking your work emails. Just below the surface of your phone or computer screen, millions of attackers lie in wait, ready to strike. One slip-up is all it takes to lose your private information, and they will take advantage of any mistake.
Sounds scary, doesn’t it? In honor of the spookiest time of the year, we wanted to get your heart rate up, as well as your awareness. If you want to beat these attackers, it’s important you know their methods of attack so you know what to avoid.
Here are the top ten scariest cybersecurity facts, and what you can do to stay safe.
- Every 39 seconds, there is a cyberattack.
- 44 files are stolen every single second, every single day.
- Email is the primary point of entry for around 94% of malware attacks.
- 43% of cyberattacks are aimed at small businesses.
- Most companies, even major ones, take around six months to detect a data breach.
- On average, malware attacks cost companies around $2.6 million.
- This year, cybercrime will cost businesses up to $10.5 trillion.
- Up to 98% of cyberattacks involve social engineering.
- 55% of small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) reported that it would take less than $50,000 in financial impact to go under.
- Less than a third of SMBs feel as though their current cyber defenses are prepared to handle modern-day threats.
In order to keep your business safe from these numbers, you can implement the following practices for you and your employees:
- Create strong, safe passwords that are different for every account on every platform.
- Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) anywhere you can.
- Keep all software up-to-date so that security patches are able to fix vulnerabilities.
- Utilize anti-virus and anti-malware software to block and reduce threats.
- Use a virtual private network (VPN) to encrypt your internet traffic.
- Partner with a managed service provider (MSP) with 24/7 monitoring to ensure any breaches are caught immediately.
- Watch out for phishing attempts and do not share your passwords or private information with unverified individuals, especially over email or social media.
- Be extremely cautious using public WiFi.
- Check to make sure web addresses begin with “https://” and look for a padlock icon in the address bar.
- Back up important data to an external drive or secure cloud storage.