The study from the University of Maryland suggests that a cyber attack is happening every 39 seconds, resulting in more than 2,000 cyber attacks per day. The objects of such attacks are usually governmental and non-governmental organizations and businesses, especially startups.
The issue of cybersecurity in startups is present since emerging businesses often financially struggle to acquire security protocols or new technologies, such as VPS with DDoS protection.
Thus, in this article, we will focus on why cybersecurity should be a priority for tech startups and how an emerging company can overcome challenges that may arise in the process.
The Importance of Cybersecurity for Emerging Businesses
Emerging businesses have a specific set of challenges associated with setting up a strong cybersecurity barrier. One of the main problems a tech startup may face is the lack of resources for establishing strong cyber protection, which is why they become the target of cyber attacks way too often. Cybercriminals go after the less-funded companies in hopes that they face weak cybersecurity and execute their plan. Oftentimes, after a singular cyber attack, businesses close in a period of 6 months or less.
To avoid this from happening to your company, make cybersecurity a priority.
The lack of resources for cybersecurity is not an unsolvable issue and has a lot to do with the improper distribution of said resources. Treat cybersecurity as one of the fundamental aspects of your business that requires funding, and invest in your cyber protection so that all of your efforts don’t go to waste because of one cyber attack.
Types of Cyber Threats an Emerging Business May Face
There are multiple ways how hackers can get into your system and exploit your vulnerabilities, which is worth being aware of. Common methods of cyberattacks include:
- Phishing. This type of cyber attack involves including malicious links in seemingly harmless messages (usually email or notification) and using pressure to get the user to click on the link, from which the hacker will get access to the data.
- Malware and ransomware. Hackers can demand ransom in exchange for decrypting giving you access to information they allegedly stole.
- Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS). These methods involve overwhelming servers with unauthorized traffic for them to stop functioning and for the services they support to be unavailable.
- SQL injections. This type of cyber attack is aimed at gaining access to data by using malicious code that can overcome weakened or insufficient cybersecurity.
- Data breaches. Data breaches are specific cyber attacks aimed at stealing or compromising sensitive information.
Possible Consequences of Weak Cybersecurity
If any of those attacks take place, it can bring undesired consequences, some of which we explore in more detail below.
Legal Consequences
Cyber attacks can bring legal consequences since the tech industry has regulations around the protection of sensitive data. If your organization isn’t compliant with data protection regulations like GDRP, and the sensitive information is compromised as a result of a cyber-attack, your business will face legal penalties.
If the information on a specific individual or group of individuals gets compromised, your business might also face lawsuits from customers, employees, or partners that were affected.
Legal consequences are also associated with financial and reputation implications and damage.
Damage to the Reputation
If the cyber attack was carried out successfully and the information about it is made public, the reputation of your business will be the first to suffer. Customer trust will be diminished as well since they don’t want to trust their personal data to a company that cannot protect it. In case of a cyber attack, the credibility of your brand and company will be reduced.
Financial Implications
Financial implications of cyberattacks can be one of the most devastating consequences of a cyber attack, especially for newer tech businesses. Issues that might require a financial investment include sponsoring the incident response strategies, data recovery, security system recovery (or the setup of a new security system), downtime, and loss of productivity in the work schedule.
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How Does an Emerging Business Establish a Cybersecurity Strategy?
Cybersecurity starts with cybersecurity strategy. Considering the fact that emerging businesses usually have limited budgets, a specific strategy should be developed in this case.
Here’s what we advise you to pay attention to when developing your cybersecurity strategy:
- Learn about cyber threats and the current related trends to know what area of cybersecurity needs strengthening in a specific period of time.
- Evaluate how much data needs protecting and evaluate the efforts needed to protect it.
- Assess the state of your cybersecurity, the methods it includes, and their relevance.
- Use the insights derived from learning about cyber threats and your cybersecurity assessment, and create a cybersecurity architecture accordingly.
- Explore common security solutions and consider which ones are worth implementing in your case.
- Ensure you regularly backup your system and any important information to avoid data loss.
- Promote cybersecurity awareness among your team members and employees.
- Choose and invest in a monitoring solution that is going to scan your system for any vulnerabilities and threats.