CYBER TRENDS
CYBER TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2021
Cyber has officially staked its
claim as a central player on the global risk stage . Cyber risk is no longer a matter of if an incident will occur but is a question of when . Every organization with access to the internet or to connected technology is exposed .
Every business in every sector is vulnerable to cyber-attacks . In 2020 , we saw several universities suffer data breaches after hackers launched a ransomware attack against Blackbaud — a cloud computing firm that administered the schools ’ data . We witnessed tech firm Canon fall prey to a ransomware attack . And social media giant Twitter suffered a sophisticated social engineering attack through which the accounts of celebrities and highprofile individuals were used to trick people into sending bitcoin to criminal accounts .
WHILE WE HEAR ABOUT THESE ATTACKS ON LARGE COMPANIES , THE VAST MAJORITY OF ATTACKS HAPPEN TO ORGANIZATIONS WITH UNDER 100 EMPLOYEES .
While we hear about these attacks on large companies , the vast majority of attacks happen to organizations with under 100 employees . Small businesses are under pressure to shore up their data privacy and protection practices or face increasing punitive regulation . Cyber challenges have only grown more extreme in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic , which has forced many businesses to adopt remote working practices . With more employees working from home and accessing business networks remotely , cyber risk has grown exponentially .
The cyber market has some troubling claim trends , particularly regarding ransomware where the frequency and severity of claims has soared since the pandemic . Ransomware has now reached epidemic status , comprising up to 40 percent of all cyber claims . The trend continues to get worse in frequency but especially in severity . Ransomware demands have gone from four- or five-digit figures to millions of dollars .
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