Indusface Shares Biggest Cybersecurity Learnings From 2016 by Venkatesh Sundar

More than 4.2 billion records were stolen last year in 4,149 confirmed breaches. Although media focused on big brands like Yahoo and the DNC, we cannot assume that hackers have missed smaller businesses on their radar. Indusface brings you the biggest numbers and learnings from the cyberthreats last year.

• Startups and small businesses are at greater risk.

Although mishaps in big companies are often reported on a large scale, smaller companies are at much bigger risks. According to the Osterman Research report, close to 71% SMEs have suffered some kind of security breach in the last one year. Since these breaches go unreported, other smaller companies neglect cybersecurity, too. Shockingly, Cisco’s Annual Security Report 2016 says that 22% of businesses with fewer than 500 employees do not have an executive with direct responsibility and accountability for security.

• Ransom attacks will grow.

Money is the biggest motivator behind cyberattacks. Stealing data or stopping web services is the best way to ensure that admins pay to protect their market reputation. In 2016, many companies like TalkTalk (£80K in Bitcoins ransom demanded) were breached. In the State of Security survey, 43% of IT professionals said that their company would pay for a ransom demand while an alarming 80% believed that their company would be threatened with a DDoS ransom attack.

• Customers will transact with ‘secure’ companies.     

Can businesses overlook cybersecurity? Can they get away with insecure handling of Personally Identifiable Information (PII)? In the coming years, as customers get more cyber-aware, they would want to purchase from or do business with responsible companies. Gemalto’s survey highlights the trend: 64% of consumers are unlikely to shop or do business again with a company that had experienced a breach where financial information was stolen.  

About the Author:

Venkatesh Sundar, Founder & Chief Marketing Officer

Venky has played multiple roles within Indusface for the past 6 years.  Prior to this, as the CTO @indusface, Venky built the product/service offering and technology team from scratch, and grew it from ideation to getting initial customers with a proven/validated business model poised for scale. Before joining Indusface, Venky had 10+ years of experience in security industry and had held various mgmt/leadership roles in Product Development, Professional Services and Sales @Entrust.