Most people must have heard about the rise of cybersecurity risks multiple times in the past, but only a few of them believe in it and take action against it. Therefore, today we want to show you in numbers to explain why you need to pay attention to these cybersecurity risks, save your data as well as dollars at risk.
The best learning comes from experience, and if hackers haven't attacked your company, consider yourself lucky. But, being lucky doesn't mean you can stop taking care of everything; it means the opposite because you and your company might be targeted by hackers next.
Most of the time, we ignore all the cybersecurity risks because it never happened to us, but we forget that when it happened to millions of people or businesses, they didn't know either. And that is why it is useful to know how much cyber-attacks have impacted people and businesses around the world through stats and facts. Primarily if you use email as your daily mode of communication, these jaw-dropping facts and stats might change your way of using emails forever.
1. Hackers attack every 39 seconds: Yes, you heard it right, according to Michel Cukier, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, a hacker attacks every 39 seconds. It implies that as you are reading this someone, somewhere in the world is, unfortunately, prey to a cyber-attack.
The study further tells us that it affects 1 in 3 Americans every year, which is quite shocking. And it is also proven in the study that non-secure usernames and passwords give hackers much higher chance of success. So, if you want to take cybersecurity seriously, you know from where you need to start; by setting a more secure password.
2. 43% of cyber-attacks target small business: If you ever thought just because you run a small business, you have a less chance of getting attacked by a cyber-attack, Fundrea proves you wrong. The study further tells us that 64% of the companies have experienced web-based attacks.
3. The global average cost of a data breach is $3.9 million across SMBs: A well-proven and essential fact for the cybersecurity industry is that the global average cost of a data breach across small and medium businesses is $3.9 million. So, if you are continuing your business without proper cybersecurity infrastructure, you know how many dollars you are straightaway putting at risk.
4. One in 131 Emails Contain Malware: Emails are the quickest way to spread malware. Most businesses in today's world, irrespective of the size, use email as the primary source of communication. And this study tells that email is still the number-one way hackers deliver malware. And this is not even the worst part. Email scams cost businesses $3 billion over the past three years, which is even scarier. Another study also suggest that 94% of malware is delivered via email. There is so much data of so much value that you can't even imagine it accessed by an unauthorized person. And that is the reason an excellent email security solution is a must to have.
5. 87% of Senior Managers Upload Business Files to a Personal Email or Cloud Account: One of the scariest facts and figures would be this one. Most of the businesses might use some level of security in a business email account, but most personal email accounts have no or negligent security deployed in their email accounts. Moreover, this study further says that 54% of lower-ranking employees and 55% of those in senior leadership positions believe that security is IT's problem - not theirs.
6. Email Malware Creation is up 26% Year Over Year: There are over 1.7 billion pieces of malware, with 317 Million New Pieces of Malware Created in 2014. It implies that email threats are increasing very rapidly. Therefore, it is essential to deploy a well-developed email security plan that secures current email malware and protects you from most of the email malware to occur in the future.
7. $17,700 is lost every minute due to phishing attacks: If you were just wondering how much loss cybersecurity does to the businesses and economy, this study has covered you. It is disturbing to hear that so much money is just being lost, keeping aside the monetary value of the invaluable data lost in the process. This money could have been put to much better use and transferred to the people who have rightfully earned it.
One of the essential parts of a cybersecurity infrastructure is email security providers. And for that, I would recommend using EPRIVO as your email security provider. EPRIVO is the only private email security service that secures your current email addresses and even can privatize your old emails. EPRIVO encrypts all your emails, adds privacy controls and authentication, and secures them so that no one can have access over them. It is the first email security provider that allows you to send both privatized text and voice-based private emails to your recipient.
EPRIVO has a lot of security features, including a sensitivity meter, which automatically detects which emails are likely to contain more sensitive information and need to be privatized as soon as possible. There are many other features like you can recall any of the messages anytime, and make them vanish from the recipient's email account and cloud servers.
You can also set auto-expiration and no forwarding limits on emails so that your confidential information is accessed only by authorized persons. Add a heads up where it automatically sends a plain text email informing the recipient about the confidential email they are about to receive. Moreover, EPRIVO does not store any of your emails, which means it segregates the email host and email security provider, which takes your privacy to the ultimate next level.
Conclusion
These facts must be enough to wake you up and catch up with the cyber-crimes happening around you and how important it is to have a more proactive approach. Email security is one such big part of cybersecurity that you need to address it as soon as possible.
Security providers like EPRIVO that augment our existing systems can help us save a lot of the money that could have gone in the wrong hands or wasted. I hope these facts and stats, instead of getting worse, will eventually get better. We just need to be proactive and then the cyber world will be a much more secure place.