June Edition 2021

47 Cyberattacks have increased exponentially since Covid-19 forced entire workforces into a work from home environment. Hackers love a good crisis and the global pandemic created the perfect opportunity—workers entering company systems from home networks, not being able to walk down the hall and check on the veracity of a wiring instruction, the general disruption that accompanies a migration of entire workforces. In addition to the increase in the number and sophistication of attacks, attacks of all typeswere up. Ransom attacks were up 150% in 2020. According to insurance company Hiscox, Ltd., 43% of over 6,000 companies it surveyed had suffered a cyberattack in 202, up 38% in the 12 months before. One is six of those attacks was a ransom attack. Accompanying this increase in ransom attacks, the amount of ransom demanded with ransomdemands increasing in from the modest 5 and 6 figure amounts of a few years ago, and up from the 7 figure demands in 2020, with some in the tens of millions of dollars. Attacks of all types are up exponentially including Office 365 or so called business email compromise cases where threat actors gain access to the Office365 email inbox through a phishing email and alter invoices and wiring instructions to divert payments, among other activity. Nation states and organized crime entering systems and deploying malware also have been on the rise. Cyberattacks are costly, with reputational risk being one of the most damaging of effects. In addition to the legal and forensic costs associated with these attacks are often substantial with the notification obligations in the US require an analysis of the data breach notification statutes which differ in all 50 states, as well as GDPR analysis as well as implication of global regulations in cross-border attacks. Often the legal costs are exacerbated by regulatory enforcement actions, particularly for publicly traded companies. The following are 10 steps you can take now to reduce your company’s cybersecurity risk: 10 Steps Companies Can Take to Reduce Cybersecurity Risk