In today’s networked world it is far easier for criminals to commit business crime using the internet, and we see more and more crime moving online from the physical world.
Although difficult to understand the full scale of the challenge as not all cyber crime is reported to police, recent statistics from PwC Information security breaches survey 2015 estimate that:
- Nearly three-quarters SMEs reported a security breach; this is an increase on the 2014 and 2013 figures;
- 59% of respondents expect there will be more security incidents in the next year than last;
- £75k - £311k was the average cost of a breach to a small business;
- Attack vectors are changing all the time, so the percentage of breaches caused by Denial of Service remained static for SMEs, but attacks from unauthorised outsiders increased.
A small business just cannot absorb that kind of blow.
In terms of business impact, cyber criminals can:
- Damage your reputation;
- Damage your networks, servers and web applications including your website;
- Create complicated compliance issues, for example under the Data Protection Act;
- Drain time and resources recovering after a breach;
- Steal your money.
The PwC figures show that cyber crime will increase over the next year, and that the way criminals attack companies is changing. We see this ourselves in the crime reports from companies who have become victims.
They can also be targetted rather than just random. Attacks are highly likely to involve some sort of open source espionage to gather intelligence about a company. This can happen over many months without you ever knowing. This information is then used in a highly convincing manner to pose as a legitimate suppler and extract either money, for example by tricking companies into changing bank account details, or to extract very sensitive data such as passwords.
This is why we suggest you look at the digital footprint of your employees or yourself as a business owner, as understanding what other people can can see about you, your employees, and how your company operates can help towards understanding how you might be targeted.