A cyber security expert, Dr. Adewale Obadare has asserted no company is totally immune against cyber attacks, going by the high dependency on the internet and adoption of digital transformation.
Mr. Adewale, who is also the Co-Founder and the Chief Operating Officer of Digital Encode Limited, a cyber security intelligence company, argued that the proliferaction of digital tools has led to the increase in cybercriminal activities.
“No organization is immune to cyber attacks as cybersecurity readiness and resilience is a journey not a destination,” he asserted at the 2020 National Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA) Virtual Innovative Tech Webinar held recently.
According to Adewale, findings has shown that at every 11 seconds, businesses will fall victim to a ransomware attack in 2021, even as cybercrime damages are projected to cost the world over US6 trillion annually in 2021, up from US3 trillion in 2015.
More than 90 percent of successful hacks and data breaches steam from phising scams. Most frequent attack methods are social engineering, advanced persistent threats, unpatched ransomware.
Stressing that cybersecurity/fraud is a discussion topic for the board and not for the data center alone, he explained that 60 percent of small businesses that suffer cyberattack are out of business within 6 months.
He also highlighted that 53percent security personnel believed that their enterprise will experience a cyberattack in the next 12 months.
While urging vigilance, he said the survey revealed 87 percent believe that the rapid shift to work from home will increase the risk of data privacy and protection issues. Also, 54percent believe will take advantage of the pandemic to disrupt organisation. However, 51percent (only half) are highly confident in their security team to detect and respond to cyber threats during the pandemic.
Although much is at stake, the Digital Encode Boss lamented that the confidence level is low.
Speaking further, he urged and advised organizations to invest in people and process and not only in technology, in an effort to collectively combat the looming threat.
He therefore recommended that for safety in the cyberspace, organizations must address cybersecurity readiness and resilience on a number of dimensions so as to understand the big picture while integrating and coordinating all operational risk management activities.
In addition, he said it is important that the executive team develop a risk intelligence quotient and also build an Intelligent Security Operations Center (SOC) based on AI & Machine Learning.