Why is Cybersecurity Protection Essential for Long Island Businesses?
All too many Long Island-based business owners believe that cybercriminals are not interested in hacking their databases, that is until it is too late. There has long been a myth circulating that hackers only attack major or global corporations. That is a complete falsehood. Larger companies have larger security budgets, whereas smaller companies do not. This makes small- to midsize enterprises the prime targets for cybercriminals, regardless of their industry. Why should Long Island business owners be concerned about upping their cyber security on Long Island? Read on!
New York’s Comptroller released a report recently that stated that cyberattacks on New York businesses are on the rise. In 2022, businesses located in the State, chiefly in Manhattan and on Long Island, sustained more than 25,000 cyberattacks. This numbing statistic is up over 53% from the 16,400 attacks that were reported in 2016. Last year’s attacks cost over $775 million. In fact, after California and Texas, our region had the third-highest number of ransomware attacks and corporate data breaches. Each breach collected large amounts of personal data that ranged from invasion of privacy, to identity theft, and fraud.
Especially vulnerable in these attacks were businesses that were using unsupported applications, had unknown data on their systems, failed to establish and maintain access controls, and did not monitor changes/updates to their systems. To reduce the severity and frequency of such attacks on local businesses, increasing cyber security for Long Island-based enterprises is advised.
Every year sees a broadening of cybercriminals’ scope, their motivations, the demographics that they target, their attack vectors, and tactics. This means that even those companies who instituted cyber security measures over the past five years but have not updated these systems are at risk. According to cyber security industry forecasters, in 2024, hackers are turning to Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a tool to locate companies with security vulnerabilities as fresh targets. For industries that are already highly regulated, such as healthcare, financial, and legal, there are new compliance initiatives that require greater vulnerability prioritization and risk management.
This means that local business stakeholders need to mitigate risk by increasing initiatives for cyber security for their Long Island enterprises. Not only are breaches expensive, but they can also impact a business in terms of lost productivity and therefore profit. For certain industries, fines due to non-compliance can be levied as well. Liability claims and class action lawsuits brought about by personal data being hacked are harsh realities of cyber criminals who have targeted your business. No business owner can afford to take those risks. We invite you to contact our team at Converged Technology Group to learn more about steps you can take to safeguard your enterprise from cyber criminals. Our network security solutions include Next Generation Firewalls, Endpoint Protection, Email Security, Web Security, Managed Detection and Response, Identity Access Management and Control, Secure Access Services Edge (SASE) and Multi-Factor Authentication. Learn more by contacting our team today!
