Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

As businesses emerge from a pandemic year, cybersecurity concerns are necessarily top of mind . Companies face expansive cybersecurity threats on many fronts, prompting 75 percent of business leaders to view cybersecurity as integral to their organization’s COVID-19 recovery. They undoubtedly face an uphill battle. Surging ransomware attacks and increasingly deceptive phishing scams are attracting national attention, while more than 500,000 cybersecurity jobs remain unfilled in the US alone.

Security concerns continue to be in the news around the world with the White House issuing an executive order earlier this summer about cybersecurity and the European Union proposing a Joint Cyber Unit to respond to the rising number of security incidents. And the hacking story that won't go away with the "SolarWinds" hackers launching a new global cyberattack at the end of May.

The recent pandemic pushed medical facilities and staff to the brink, taxing resources, exhausting employees, and disrupting decades of norms and protocols. It also accelerated technological trends that were quickly becoming popular, namely the centrality of technology and data in patient care. Today, many medical practices are digital-first operations, embracing telehealth and remote work at far greater levels than before the pandemic.

Since we live in a digital world where data has surpassed the value of oil and became the most valuable resource in the world, we start to question our digital security. Data has become more accessible for hackers, which results in a constant increase of cyber-attacks over the years. Most industries function digitally, so cyber-attacks are present everywhere, including sport organizations.

From healthcare to education to critical infrastructure, nobody seems to be safe from cyber attacks. Not even video game creators. News broke in early June that video game giant Electronic Arts was one of the latest victims of a major breach. At first glance, this is just another story of hackers breaking into a victim and finding their way to a sizable pay day. Nothing new here. Plenty of attacks happen every week, right? However it was the way that the attackers got in that was interesting.

The costs and consequences of a data breach or cybersecurity incident have never been more severe. According to the FBI’s recently released Internet Crime Report 2020, cybercrime resulted in $4 billion in losses last year, a low estimate that still encapsulates the incredible value lost to threats actors. For small businesses, the costs can be catastrophic. As Vox reports, 60% of small businesses will close after a data breach, underscoring the high-stakes bottom-line nature of cybersecurity.

The turbulence of the past year has shown how vulnerable international systems can be to cybercrime and malicious actors. According to reports, cyber attacks have increased by more than 150 percent across Germany since the outbreak of the pandemic. Among US colleagues, the number of leaked government data has even increased by 278 percent.