Cyber security has become paramount in today’s world and is required by almost every enterprise and in all sectors. With the constant development of technology, cyber security is of the utmost importance from potential online threats like malware, virus, and DDoS attacks, which are notorious for taking entire networks down. These attacks can potentially cause a company millions in damages and must be prevented at all costs.
As mentioned, cyber security is required in all sectors; however, several institutions need it the most:
Healthcare
Health records are private information that should only be shared with consulting doctors and the patient. Nowadays, most health records can be digitally accessed, making them vulnerable to attacks. Due to this, several hospitals have become targets for hackers.
In the previous years, over ninety percent of organizations in the healthcare sector have been victims of these types of cyber attacks because, apart from the network administrator, nurses and doctors do not know how these systems function. This can unwillingly make them victims of cyber attacks as well.
Over a third of all the cyber attacks within the previous years have been some sort of ransomware that blocks all access to their system, disrupting the workflow and efficiency of the hospital till the mentioned amount is paid to the hackers. This can prove to be very disastrous as the systems house all patients’ health records, which might be required if a patient is in a life-threatening scenario.
Government Institutions
Needless to say, government organization houses some of the most important information regarding the country and all activities within it, making it very important to have some cyber security services. Government agencies are always at a high risk of being targeted for cyber attacks to steal national secrets or access classified information. For example, in 2019, the United States of America was subject to 79 ransomware attacks and had to pay over eighteen billion dollars combined to access the data and protect all private information.
Financial Institutions
Financial institutions are also at high risk of cyber attacks as they control a huge sum of money along with thousands of people’s assets and private information. Some of the most common attacks on financial institutions are server attacks, a form of DDoS attack, causing the company servers to crash or prevent access. At the same time, all the private information is gathered from them. This makes cyber security solutions imperative for financial institutions. Greenloop solutions cybersecurity services offer a wide range of solutions tailored to big enterprises and small businesses as well.
Small Businesses
Due to their limited capital, small businesses and startups often become victims of cyber attacks as they aren’t properly established yet and might not have dedicated cybersecurity solutions. Over forty percent of all cyberattacks are aimed at small businesses, making for good targets for hackers to earn money. One of the most common ways to gain access to the company’s systems is by phishing, where the company’s employee is tricked into clicking a link that looks legit but is a specially created link by the hacker to get access to their systems.
Education
Educational institutions have also started becoming victims of cyber attacks as the sector has noticed increased technology integration.
Energy Institutions
Power grids, nuclear power plants, and other energy production institutions are no strangers to cyber attacks. This is because most of their systems are run by computers, and hackers can access these systems and wreak havoc, causing millions of dollars in damages and affecting hundreds of thousands of lives if they hit a big enough power plant. One example of this is the 2021 colonial pipeline outage in 2021; hackers managed to get control of the systems and prevented access to it till a certain amount was paid. Cyber attacks like these are a great threat to the entire country and may significantly impact the economy.
Examples Of Cyber Attacks
Companies like Yahoo!, Google, and eBay have all been victims of massive cyber attacks in the past. In 2013, Yahoo experienced a massive data breach, exposing the private information of customers who had Yahoo accounts. The total number of accounts affected by this breach exceeded three billion.
The leaked information consisted of usernames, passwords, emails, and other private information. However, the financial information was not leaked during this breach. Although, with all the additional details like names, numbers, and different passwords, the hackers could access the bank accounts of some people whose data was leaked.
In 2018, Google was subject to a massive data breach leaking the personal and private information of more than five million users. However, this attack was not as severe; to this day, there has been no sign of misuse of the data leaked in that breach.
eBay was also a victim of a data breach in 2014, which leaked the personal information of more than 145 million users. This information included usernames, passwords, date of birth, phone numbers, addresses, and names. This was one of the biggest data breaches during the time, and eBay was quick to tell their users to change their passwords as soon as possible. If required steps were not taken to fix this breach, the damage from a leak of such a magnitude would have been huge.
Conclusion
Cyber security services, as mentioned, are required by almost all institutions in today’s world. However, some institutions like governmental, financial, and healthcare are at the most risk. This is due to the fact that the information they possess affects the lives of millions of people, and they can ask for a higher sum of money to get their data and access back. Cyber security has become extremely important, and its need will only increase in the coming future as technology continues to advance.