Cybercrime is an ever-increasing threat to our modern society
Cybercrime is something that the majority of us do not see as a personal or targeted threat, although we mostly understand that it could happen to anyone, especially with numerous high-profile businesses that we trust with our information increasingly falling victim to cyber related crimes every year since 2015, according to the FBI.
This therefore should make us think about what we can do to better protect our devices and accounts, but the majority of citizens in the UK, according to Gov.uk, feel that they wouldn?t be targeted, and that business have more to lose than they do. However, with half of UK businesses reporting a cyber related crime in 2018 there has been a major push towards increasing cyber security to better defend their accounts from small cybercrime like phishing attacks and viruses.
The UK public however is a much easier target, with 73% of people aged over 45 reporting that they were victims of crime at least once in 2017/2018 according to eandt.org, this is a worry as most of these individuals surveyed claim they do not feel safe on the internet but agreed it provides us with a positive impact when used correctly.
The FBI, which operates a globally available service known internally as IC3, which is tasked with analysing reports of cybercrime and in some successful cases returning what is rightfully owed, stated to BBC News that it alone had received a total of 467,361 complaints of cybercrime from both individual consumers and businesses. This according to the FBI meant that over ?2.7Bn was stolen via cybercrimes with half of these crimes relating to BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks, they amassed a total of ?1.36Bn out of the ?2.7Bn (around half of the total amount).
The effects of a cyber-attack, such as for example Ransomware attacks, can be devastating and also very lengthy as files are encrypted and held as the name suggests at ransom (with the attackers usually demanding a large amount of money from the victim). These attacks mostly happen to be targeted towards businesses as they may have something to hide from the public unlike a typical user who may only perform online banking and use basic online services such as shopping and entertainment platforms like eBay and YouTube.
One of the main issues for cybercrime is that it is not heavily publicised unless it revolves around a large company falling victim to attack, something which happens less than the daily scams affecting the general public. These scams range from simple phishing emails designed to make you enter your personal data to a ransomware attack where a user renders a device unusable unless a fee is paid, leaving the user with very little choice.
The FBI?s IC3 encourages those vulnerable to report any instance of cybercrime to either local police or the IC3 helpline and frontline protection, such as security applications like antivirus, enhanced firewalls for businesses and up to date user education is also recommended in order to defend against emerging and future ransomware attacks.
For businesses however it is important to ensure that an appropriate and up to date disaster recovery plan is in place in order to prevent a future attack from crippling your business, like for example what has happened recently to global currency exchange company Travelex, who were forced to revert to operating via pen and paper due to a ransomware attack.
If you require any further information please get in contact with Cyber Wise to discuss your business disaster recovery plan, to help protect your business.