Double Jeopardy – The Rise in Corporate Ransomware Cyberattacks

DALLAS - Nov. 3, 2020 - PRLog -- With the pandemic bringing digital business operations to the forefront, online crime is on the rise. The FBI reported a staggering 400 percent increase of daily cyberattack complaints since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic – a spike from 1,000 to 4,000 in just a few months.

In fact, the prevalence of ransomware attacks since the pandemic struck has been so astronomical that the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) was forced to issue an unprecedented statement. They state that sanctions may be placed on organizations that pay ransoms to malicious actors (often residing in countries that already have US embargoes against them), as this action only encourages more attacks.  Businesses impacted by a ransomware attack now find themselves in a dire position – either pay the ransom to get their business back and risk repercussions from the US government, or don't pay and take months to get their operation back to normal while running the risk that their private data be sold and business reputation tarnished.

Mark Coltharp, EVP at Zyston (https://www.zyston.com) - an industry leading managed security service (MSSP & MDR) provider, had this to say: "Today, more than ever before, executive leaders and board of directors have to take cybersecurity as a real liability to their business and take significant steps to improve their security posture.  With the government now threatening legal action against businesses paying ransomware, the only reasonable solution is prevention and unfortunately most businesses are not prepared to deal with today's cybersecurity threats and are unaware of the corporate risk and liabilities in day to day business operations."

The projected cost of cybercrime going into 2021 is now set to exceed $6 trillion dollars annually now making cybersecurity front and center in the 2021 budget cycle.  McKinsey research suggests that over 70% of CISOs plan on asking for significant increases in budgets going into 2021 and the amount of supporting examples to justify those requests is not in limited supply.  Currently, the latest CIO survey suggests that the average company will allocate 16% of its IT budget to cybersecurity next year. Unfortunately, many CISOs still struggle to get a seat at the table when it comes time to budget season.

Coltharp agrees and went on to say "Many CISOs struggle to create meaningful metrics that can provide insights and the necessary justification for budget requests.  We are finding this to be a real issue inside organizations and are actually sponsoring an upcoming Forester webinar on this very topic to help CISOs address this challenge."

To register for the webinar visit: https://www.zyston.com/webinar-key-security-metrics-for-b...