lessons can be learned from the latest cybercrime headlines, and how can you apply it to your cybersecurity and IT services as a whole?

What Should Comcast’s Security Flaws Mean To You?

September 4th, 2018 by admin

Security – Foundational In Comprehensive IT Services (Questions/Answers)

What lessons can be learned from the latest cybercrime headlines, and how can you apply it to your cyber security and IT services as a whole? Cybercrime – it almost feels like there’s no need to talk about it anymore, right? At this point, it seems like every single day…
  • …you get another email telling you that you, your staff and your business aren’t safe,
  • … you get another flyer in your mailbox about the latest antivirus software that YOU NEED in order to stay secure.
  • … you see another news story about a major data breach.
And on and on and on. Be honest – have you stopped paying attention?

Are You Getting Complacent About Security?

It’s this oversaturation of cybercrime news that has led to so many people just learning to tune it out. But that’s obviously not very safe, is it? The fact is that this ongoing war on cybersecurity and cybercrime is indicative of how serious it really is. While you may get bored of hearing about it again and again and again, the reality is it’s not going away. By some metrics, it’s getting worse. According to the Ponemon Institute
  • There was a 22.7% increase in the cost of cybercrime in 2017 compared to past years
  • There was a 27.4% increase in the average annual number of security breaches
  • Data loss represents the largest cost component with a rise of 35% in 2015 to 43% in 2017
Are You Paying Attention To Cybercrime? Whether it’s interesting or not, it’s vitally important to stay informed about the development of cybercrime. Case in point: in early August, major security flaws exposed the personal information of millions of Comcast users. Discovered by security researcher Ryan Stevenson, these vulnerabilities in Comcast’s online customer portal were apparently so blatant as to make it “easy for even an unsophisticated hacker to access this sensitive information.” What kind of damage did it cause?
  • 26.5 million customers’ information was unnecessarily exposed.
  • Partial addresses and social security numbers were left unprotected by these flaws.
  • Comcast has had to launch an investigation into whether any foul play has occurred.

What Should Comcast’s Security Flaws Mean To You?

There are a number of key lessons to be learned from Comcast’s failure to keep their customers secure: Size Doesn’t Matter Ever heard of the idea “too big to fail”? While it’s generally applied to banks and economies, the same logic has been applied to big, Fortune 500 businesses. You may assume that a company as prolific as Comcast can’t be affected by a security incident. And while this incident hasn't put them under, there's no denying the price they've had to pay. Just as the Ponemon Institute's statistics above show that the cost of cybercrime is only going up, you can bet the investigation and damage control that Comcast has had to launch in the aftermath of this incident is a cost they didn't expect to have to pay. Don't assume that your small business is secure either – even though you may not be nationally active and high profile, the fact is that small to medium-sized businesses need to look past their size and understand that they're often preferable targets for cybercriminals because it's assumed (often correctly) that their cybersecurity isn't up to snuff. Your Reputation Is Invaluable Beyond the money that a business spends on investigating an incident, patching vulnerabilities and other forms of damage control, don’t forget what a cybersecurity incident can do to the target’s reputation. Do you think the 26.5 million Comcast users whose addresses and social security numbers were compromised are pleased with Comcast? It’s not very likely.

How Can You Apply These Cybersecurity Lessons?

The bottom line is that you need to invest in reliable IT security services as a preventative measure – do it now, and not later. But what should you look for? Put simply, comprehensive cybersecurity services that are a part of fully managed IT services. Your IT security services should include 4 key aspects of a well-rounded defense:
  1. Managed Firewalls
  2. Managed Antivirus
  3. Managed Anti-Spam
  4. Managed Anti-Malware
That said, don’t settle for a company that claims to specialize in IT security alone – if you’re going to invest in IT services, they should support all of your IT. Anything less, and you won’t be getting your money’s worth. Like this article? Check out How Can ATP And Safe Links Help Me Prevent Hacker Attacks? Where Does Dark Web ID Find Your Data On The Deep Web? Insider’s Scoop or How Do I Find the Right IT Managed Services Provider? to learn more.

Posted in: News


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