Basil's permanent state of chaos would see cybercrime thrive and his summer season would be ruined by having to remember all his passwords, log in to the Bank, website security, and payment systems and deal with GDPR and just some of following
And of course BREXIT.
Like in any organisation, Basil's Hotel depended on its staff to run and employees are always the weakest link in cyber-security. Employee errors often lead to phishing, smashing, fishing, and ransomware thriving.
“Staff were having light-bulb moments when they see or hear of security threats. They feel enabled to analyse threats and empowered to make informed decisions when faced with a threat. Netflix for Cyber we can call it”.
It’s all quite grim in the cyberworld but crime pays. Poor password hygiene and password habits and lack of human awareness regarding cyber security and, of course, increasingly sophisticated criminals and tactics paving the road to rich, easy profits. Recently in E-Flow text was particularly simple and clever, a simple phone text telling people they owed motorway toll pretending to be from E-Flox.
We all see the impact ransomware has. Government departments and critical infrastructure like hospitals, ageing electrical networks, to name a few.
The global supply chain continued to be apparent where attackers accessed the target victim's networks or systems via third-party vendors or suppliers. The disclosure of the 'Log4J' vulnerability highlighted where IT systems helped to deliver successful attacks.
Criminals upped the ante with social engineering attacks by taking advantage of issues, such as government energy grants or tax returns, used.
SMS - Smishing Voice-based phishing attacks - Vishing
Naturally, this creates an atmosphere for ordinary decent criminals to enjoy good returns almost risk-free.
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Sophos reports that ransomware attacks are the most prominent, with 13% of UK/Ireland organisations paying ransom at an average cost of £882,409 (€1 million). The ancillary costs are huge as well. After suffering a ransomware attack in October 2020, Hackney Council published its accounts showing the London authority spent £12 million to help it recover from a big ransomware attack.
£444,000 ($553,488) on IT consultancy, £152,000 ($189,482) rebuild the social care system £572,000 ($713,052) on the housing register.
A well-known insurance agency on the east coast of Ireland suffered a well-organised CEO fraud attack, which persuaded the FC to transfer €44,000. Whilst the scam was clever, it relied on the Financial Controller to make the payment and type in the IBAN details. Human error is the leading element in cybercrime.
Attacks aside, the other big economic impacts are fines and reporting. Between January 2022 and January 2023, the UK had over 10,000 personal data breach notifications under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
According to a 2022 National Fraud and Cyber Crime Dashboard, there were 289,330 reports with total losses of £3.7 billion ($4.6 billion).
Most of this was fraud as opposed to cybercrime, but most attacks were cyber-enabled.
The single greatest step towards cybersecurity any organisation can take is to train its employees in better habits. Get ready for the long haul, remember drink-driving campaign took 30 years. Book a 30 min chat
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