Don’t Gamble on Your Cybersecurity Strategy

Exploring the latest insights from Wire

3
Dont Gamble Cybersecurity Wire
Unified Communications

Published: October 18, 2019

Rebekah Carter - Writer

Rebekah Carter

Wire, a leading collaboration platform known for its commitment to cybersecurity and privacy strategies, recently released a new report. The “Odds of a Bad Bet” report details the alarming series of risks that today’s businesses need to address in the digital landscape. According to the study, email is currently providing an easy entrance for cyber criminals and malicious individuals to make their way into business data.

The new report, co-authored with Liv Boeree, a well-known poker champion, highlights the risks of gambling on your approach to cybersecurity in the current landscape. Liv draws a selection of interesting parallels between the poker environment and the business world, sharing insights into the odds of risk around cybersecurity. According to the report, the odds of an employee recognising a phishing email is just as slim as hitting a certain number on a roulette wheel.

Email and People are Weak Points

In one central finding from the Liv and Wire’s report, email is one of the greatest cybersecurity issues that today’s businesses can face. Currently, email offers one of the most dangerous access points for criminals, because it exploits the imperfections of humans. People aren’t always able to see malicious emails at first glance. According to the report, an employee is 3 times more likely to infect their coworker with a malicious email than they are to share the flu with their partner.

Additionally, the “odds of a bad bet” study also highlights the relentless nature of most modern cyber-attacks. These days, the odds of avoiding a malware attack are as slim as attempting to pull an Ace of Spades from a shuffled deck. What’s more, companies have a 50/50 chance of suffering from a DoS attack. The report also found that companies are ten times more likely to experience week-long downtime from ransomware than an average homeowner is to experience a house fire.

The odds are stacked up against today’s business owners. Today’s companies simply can’t afford to fail when it comes to future-proofing their companies. You’re almost as likely to go out of business following a cyber attack as you are to lose your business due to lack of funding.

Investigating the Risks Facing Today’s Companies

The Wire report highlights a number of comparison odds around the likelihood of cyberattacks for businesses. For instance, the chances of your business experiencing a significant ransomware attack are five times greater than your odds of being in a car accident.

Wire believes that the level of risk associated with the current business landscape highlight a clear necessity to begin implementing future-proofing methods in a company. The benefits of taking precautionary measures are clear. The average ROI for end-to-end encryption is around twice as high as investing in the S&P 500.

The report also notes that cybersecurity costs are rising so rapidly that today’s companies need to act now if they want to avoid excess expense. According to Liv Boeree, when playing poker against the best players in the world, it’s important to understand the odds, the risks, and the opportunities in the game. Businesses failing to put cybersecurity measures in place, like accessing a secure alternative to email, are ignoring the fact that the odds are stacked against them.

The CEO of Wire, Morten Brøgger, commented that people’s reliance on email is a serious security vulnerability today. There are more modes of reliable and safe collaboration available today than ever before. Unfortunately, the latest report indicates that 4 in 10 employees think that their CEO doesn’t value cybersecurity properly.

Morten Brøgger
Morten Brøgger

The Odds of a Bad Bet report also introduces insights from a range of leading experts in cybersecurity, including the CEO of The Defence Works, Edward Whittingham. According to Edward, cybercrime is an issue that continues to plague businesses, and it’s a problem that isn’t going anywhere soon. Fortunately, businesses can reduce their risk by considering the technical measures that they have in place to protect themselves.

The new report comes from months of review and research into the security issues surrounding today’s communication and collaboration methods. According to Wire, it’s just the first in a selection of reports intended to highlight the risks and gambles that a business takes with its privacy and security strategies.

 

Security and Compliance
Featured

Share This Post