“…Seventy-three percent of small-to-middle-sized companies experienced a cyber attack in 2010, and 30% of those attacks were extremely effective, according to Symantec, a software security developer based in Mountan View, Calif…”
“…estimates are that this year…the cost associated with each breach has gone up to $214 per record…Negligence is a big issue,” “
With the increase in worldwide cyber crimes, smaller private businesses may be more vulnerable than larger ones, said an executive of Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. “It’s the perfect cyber storm,” said Ken Goldstein, vice president of the Chubb Group of Insurance Companies. “We’re in a bad economy; we’ve got private companies, generally small to middle in market size, that are strapped in what they can spend on intellectual property protection,” he said.
At the same time, he said, new technology means “cyber thieves can essentially hack from anywhere around the globe.”
Cyber crimes can do serious harm to an organization’s bottom line. According to Ponemon’s, the median annualized cost of cyber crimes for the 50 organizations studied was $5.9 million, with a range of $1.5 million to $36.5 million. This represents a 56% increase since last year.
“Multiply that by the number of customers that you service; it could be a sizable amount of money that a company would have to pay out of pocket,” Goldstein said.
The most costly cyber crimes are those caused by malicious code, denial of service, stolen devices and Web-based attacks, Goldstein said. Besides deliberate cyber theft, Goldstein says company information loss sometimes is a byproduct of employee negligence. An employee losing their mobile device at a hotel or restaurant, for example, could lead to a breach, he said.
For more:Â http://www.fa-mag.com/fa-news/9382-smaller-private-companies-at-greater-risk-of-cyber-attack-.html
