In a recent Forbes article, UpGuard CEO and co-founder Mike Baukes made a rather stunning statement: "The data is in: Cybersecurity is dead."
Below, CyberPolicy will examine this article and the state of cybersecurity for private businesses. Keep in mind that even if your digital defenses fail to insulate you from hackers and data breach, CyberPolicy offers free cybersecurity insurance quotes to businesses like yours so you can avoid financial ruin.
Cyber Strife
"It is 2017, and we now have ample evidence proving that the false promise of so much cybersecurity - that risk can be entirely eliminated with one simple program - will, barring a technological revolution, never be realized."
This was Baukes's rather blunt response to an advertisement he saw promising an end to today's cyberattacks; something Baukes believes to be an example of "irresponsible hyperbole." In all seriousness, no platform or provider can, in good faith, promise to eliminate the threat of cybercrime. But does this mean cybersecurity is dead and buried?
The truth of the matter is that cybersecurity isn't dead, but rather locked in a relentless digital arms race with sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. In the past few years, we've seen a tremendous uptick in security spending. Businesses worldwide are expected to spend $101.6 billion on cybersecurity software, service and hardware in 2020! But we have also seen large-scale cyberattacks across industries and national borders.
These include:
These incidents are becoming more and more common, but they aren't even the primary threat. Low-level hackers are able to infiltrate business networks and steal precious data with run-of-the-mill phishing scams, malware downloads and brute force attacks.
"For most consumers and enterprise customers, they believe cybersecurity programs will be able to protect systems against all hacks and breaches - a belief more or less encouraged by such providers," Baukes says. "The reality is no company can do that."
And he would be right. There is no "set it and forget it" cybersecurity solution because the terrain is constantly changing and the threats are constantly evolving.
Baukes goes on to say that such claims would be amusing if not for the simple fact that people (real people) are victimized by data breaches.
"Ranging from your grandmother's medical records to your personal financial information... It is no exaggeration to say that cyber risk... is a matter of life and death," Baukes says. "A better conception would involve viewing risk as an inescapable fact of doing business using any internet-facing devices."
We couldn't agree more. That's why CyberPolicy has dedicated itself to providing quality cybersecurity insurance and defense advice to small and medium businesses. When organizations realize that cyberattacks are essentially inescapable, they are more likely to be responsible with their data, aware of the risks and accountable to their customers.
Do the right thing, and invest in cyber insurance today. Visit CyberPolicy for more information.
