Do you have a cyber security program in place?
The cost of cyber crimes, security and cyber damage are constantly in the news. While many of us are enjoying our summer with relaxing weekends, the impending threat of hackers is real and increasing. Global networks are expanding rapidly and the cost of these data breaches affect every single company in the world. It is predicted that cyber damage costs will rise up to $6 trillion by 2021, up from $3 trillion just a year ago. Here’s why you need cyber security ASAP….
Top 2017 Summer Data Breaches:
University of Oklahoma (06-14-17)
The Oklahoma Daily discovered that an on-campus data breach was connected to the University’s document sharing system, Delve. Records dating back to 2002 were accidentally exposed through incorrect privacy settings. The Oklahoma Daily reported that only 30 files were compromised; however in reality there were over 29,000 instances in which student’s confidential information was made public with OU’s email system. To date, the system has still been shut down indefinitely.
BlueCross BlueShield / Anthem (06-27-17)
Health insurance company Anthem agreed to a $115 million settlement in connection with a data breach that impacted 80 million of their customers in 2015. Many of their brands were affected such as BCBS Anthem, Amerigroup, Healthlink, Caremore and a few others.
Anthem alerted the FBI immediately as well as bringing on a cyber security firm. The cyber damage cost supports the need that all companies small-large must take cyber security seriously. To date, the settlement is waiting for approval by the courts on August 17th, 2017.
California Association of Realtors (07-10-17)
Real Estate Business Services (REBS), a subsidiary of the California Association of Realtors, recently reported to the California Attorney General’s Office that their online payment system store.car.org was breached between March 13, 2017, and May 15, 2017. When a user made a payment online during that time, personal information may have been copied by infected malware and transmitted to an unknown third party. Sensitive data that included name, address, and all important credit card details. REBS now uses PayPal.
Verizon (07-13-17)
More recently, the media was buzzing with the news that potentially 14 million Verizon subscribers may have been affected by a data breach if you had contacted customer service within the last six months. Chris Vickery, UpGuard, discovered the data breach. He informed Verizon in late-June. Fortunately, the breached data was secured after one week.
Wells Fargo (07-21-17)
An ex-Wells Fargo employee, Gary Sinderbrand and his legal team received a cd of over 50,000 records for some of the financial company’s wealthiest clients by an outside bank attorney. Sinderbrand requested this discovery material to help in his $19 million suit against Wells Fargo and his brother.
The confidential files included not only their names and social security numbers but private financial details as well. On Wednesday 7-26-17, two judges ordered that the information be returned to the court for safe keeping while this investigation continues.
Cyber attacks are dangerous and damage extremely costly. As a respected and trusted Managed IT Services Provider, our technicians and engineers are highly knowledgeable with the latest industry innovations in computers, servers, networks and cloud computing technologies. We strive for superior quality and your complete satisfaction with every aspect of our service. Your consideration in choosing us to protect your company is not taken lightly. We believe in setting up the best framework possible to guard your business against all forms of cyber crime!
