On its website, the FBI says its goal is to change the behavior of criminals and nation-states that believe they can compromise U.S. networks, steal financial and intellectual property, and put critical infrastructure at risk without facing risk themselves.

In other words, the  FBI’s cybersecurity strategy is to impose risk and consequences on cyber adversaries.

This, as much as anything, should clue all organizations big and small to the importance of effective and efficient cybersecurity.

The world faces over 100,000 malicious websites and 10,000 malicious files daily with phishing attacks account for more than 80% of reported security incidents.

Google has registered over 2 million phishing sites as of January 2021 – this is up from 1.7 million in January 2020, which equates to a 27% increase in 12 months.

Those stats are alarming, yet expected to get even worse. The world will store 200 zettabytes of data by 2025. This is data that will be stored on private, public, and utility IT infrastructures and cloud data centers, personal computing devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones and on IoT (Internet-of-Things) devices.

Parlay this information with the number of internet-connected devices expected to increase from 31 billion in 2020 to 35 billion in 2021 and 75 billion in 2025.

The potential for disaster is quite clear.

This past year brought with it several significant developments in the cybersecurity arena. Heading that list, of course, COVID-19 forced companies to create remote workforces and operate off cloud-based platforms.

Additionally, the ongoing rollout of 5G has made connected devices more connected than ever, making the cybersecurity industry even more significant.

For 2021 and beyond, cybersecurity professionals see many more trends that organizations should be aware of. Some of these trends include:

• Remote workers continuing to be a target for cybercriminals.
• As a result of 5G increasing the bandwidth of connected devices, IoT devices will become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
• As a side effect of remote workforces, cloud breaches will increase.

Organizations should take note that despite all the entry points exploited by cybercriminals, human error continues to be the No. 1 cause of expensive cybersecurity breaches. In fact, according to Cybint, 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by employees.

But still, the most damaging and most widespread threat facing small businesses are phishing attacks. Phishing accounts for 90% of all breaches that organizations face. Worse yet, they’ve grown 65% over the last year, and they account for over $12 billion in business losses.

Organizations should understand that small businesses are just as much at risk from cybersecurity threats as large enterprises. A common misconception for small businesses is an idea of security through obscurity, that your business is too small to be a target, but this is not the case.

Cybersecurity Training

We can help. Tonex offers nearly four dozen different Cybersecurity Training Courses, Seminars and Workshops in areas that include Cybersecurity Foundation, IoT Security, Risk Management Framework Training and Wireless Security Training.

Why is this happening?

Gone are the days of simple firewalls and anti-virus software being a company’s sole security measures. The rise of digitalization and other more advanced technological architectures has changed everything.

Cybersecurity risk is increasing driven by global connectivity and usage of cloud services to store sensitive data and personal information. Widespread poor configuration of cloud services paired with increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals means the risk that your organization can suffer from a successful cyberattack  is on the rise.

And now it’s not just cybercriminals that organizations need to worry about. Cybersecurity breaches have other  consequences. Government regulations mandate organizations have cybersecurity controls in place to protect sensitive data or face considerable fines. Cybersecurity laws include:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — This sweeping set of regulations is designed to protect the personal information of all citizens in the European Union. Since many U.S. businesses work with European firms and customers, these businesses must comply with GDPR. Unlike most other cybersecurity laws, this one mandates the use of encryption. GDPR is also especially punitive, with fines potentially totaling tens of millions of dollars.
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DDS) — Any organization that accepts payment card – credit cards, debit cards etc. – is subject to this law developed by the payment card industry. Organizations must meet 12 requirements related to securing payment card information. Being in breach of PCI DDS exposes organizations to minimum fines of $5,000 per month and maximum fines of $100,000 per month.
• HIPAA — The fine is calculated based on the number of medical records exposed, with fines ranging from $50-$50,000 per record. Fines are capped at $1.5 million per year, but organizations may receive the maximum fine for multiple years. Violators may even face prison time ranging from 1-10 years.
• GLBA — Organizations are fined up to $100,000 for each violation of this law, and the officers and directors of the organization may be fined up to $10,000 personally. Individuals may also face up to five years in prison.

There are other regulations on wireless and mobile networks, space and SATCOM, transportation, etc. If you are not yet worried about cybersecurity, you should be. Leveraging automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning can potentially save over $2 million — however, only 38% of businesses have adopted this solution so far.

Just remember: Cyber threats can come from any level of your organization. Cybersecurity professionals emphasize the importance of educating staff about simple social engineering scams like phishing and more sophisticated cybersecurity attacks like ransomware or other malware designed to steal intellectual property or personal data.

Cybersecurity training is invaluable, and, quite frankly, can protect your organization from disaster.

Participants are introduced to a wide variety of topics including cutting edge ways of mitigating cybersecurity vulnerabilities and protecting information systems of cyber-resilient environments, mobile devices, networks or cloud computing systems.

This along with the continued emphasis on teaching employees the best cybersecurity practices for preventing bad actors from getting a digital foothold into a company’s sensitive infrastructure.

Who Should Attend?

Cybersecurity courses are designed for all IT professionals, security scientists and government personnel who want to learn the foundation of cybersecurity in detail as well as keep up on trends in the cybersecurity field.

Why Tonex?

• Tonex has been documenting the cybercrime evolution for nearly 30 years when it first began training organizations on how to better deflect contemporary cyberattacks.
• Our Cybersecurity training courses and seminars are continuously updated so that they reflect the latest industry trends, and they are also created by specialists in the industry who are familiar with the market climate.
• So far we have helped over 20,000 developers in over 50 countries stay up to date with cutting edge information from our training categories.
• We’re different because we take into account your workforce’s special learning requirements. In other words, we personalize our training – Tonex has never been and will never be a “one size fits all” learning program.
• Ratings tabulated from student feedback post-course evaluations show an amazing 98 percent satisfaction score.

Contact us for more information, questions, comments.