Authentication is the first line of defense for every government, corporation, and individual. As today’s world depends on ones and zeros for its every need, cybersecurity safeguards the priceless information stored on networks and servers against bad actors, and maintains promises of data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. In essence, an organization’s credibility is only as good as its last cybersecurity check.
It’s not just on principle either. From 2021 to 2023, there was a 72% increase in cybersecurity breaches, making it the least data-secure years in all of history. Subpar cybersecurity has become more expensive with each breach that reaches a targeted organization’s radar costing a global average of $4.9 million. A study of 28 large breaches found that they negatively impacted those companies’ long-term stock valuations by 3.7% as investors lost confidence in their security practices. Concurrently, two-thirds of US customers report that they would sever ties with companies following a breach.
In addition to the lost business, an average of $1.24 million is spent on both detecting the breach and handling its fallout, which includes investigations, audits, crisis management, and communications like notifying breach victims. Then, another $1.14 million is spent on post-breach attempts to patch and rectify the leak, including discounts, legal expenses, and regulatory fines due to insufficient data protection. And hackers are only becoming bolder. As only 0.05% of cybercrime entities are identified and prosecuted, there is little opportunity to prevent their perpetration through deterrence.
With the material costs of cybersecurity breaches growing every year, stricter and more robust data protection should become increasingly relevant to any organization’s day-to-day operations.
What is overlooked is that 68% of breaches are caused by human factors, i.e., falling victim to phishing attacks or security errors like insecure passwords. As security systems become more complex, organizations can suffer from ‘cyber fatigue.’ Defined by Cisco as “virtually giving up on proactively defending against malicious actors,” cyber fatigue only increases the likelihood of subsequent attacks.
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