No business wants to suffer a data breach. But unfortunately, in today’s environment, it’s difficult to completely avoid them. Approximately 83% of organizations have experienced more than one data breach. (IBM Security 2022 Cost of a Data Breach Report)These breaches hurt businesses in many ways. First, there is the immediate cost of remediating the breach. Then, there are the lost productivity costs. You can add lost business on top of that, and lost customer trust. A business could also have extensive legal costs associated with a breach.According to IBM Security’s report, the cost of a data breach climbed again in 2022. The global cost of one breach is now $4.35 million, up 2.6% from last year. If your business is in the U.S., the cost rises to $9.44 million. In Canada, the average data breach costs companies $5.64 million.Costs for smaller companies tend to be a little lower. But breaches are often more devastating to SMBs. They don’t have the same resources that larger companies…

There’s a reason that browsers like Edge have added breached password notifications. Data breaches are an unfortunate part of life. And can have costly consequences for individuals. Hackers can steal identities and compromise bank accounts, just to name a couple.Cybercriminals breach about 4,800 websites every month with form jacking code. It has become all too common to hear of a large hotel chain or social media company exposing customer data.Hackers can breach your personal information and passwords without you knowing it. And the time from breach to notification of the breach can be lengthy. One example is the data breach of CafePress. This is a popular online retailer that prints personalized items.CafePress suffered a data breach in February 2019. That breach exposed millions of names and addresses, security questions, and more. Hackers also breached social security numbers that weren’t encrypted.As mentioned, the breach happened in February. But many consumers weren’t notified until late summer. The FTC recently took action against the company. This was due…

Data privacy has been a growing requirement ever since the internet age began. So much personal information is flying around through computer networks. Protecting it has become a mandate.Most companies must follow HIPAA, GDPR, or another industry or locality-based privacy rule. By the end of 2024, 75% of the world’s population will have their personal data protected. It will fall under one or more privacy regulations.You don’t need to be a large enterprise organization to have data privacy compliance at the top of your mind. It goes hand in hand with cybersecurity. Additionally, privacy requirements hit all sized companies.Between July 2020 and July 2021, GDPR violations rose by 113.5%. The number of associated fines also jumped, by 124.92%. When it comes to HIPAA violations, each incident can carry a penalty between $100 to $25,000.It’s important to make data privacy a priority and factor it into all your data collection processes. When companies collect, send, or store personally identifiable information (PII) it needs protection. This means…

The new year has just begun and it’s a time of renewal as we plan for the possibilities to come in 2023. It’s also a time when you need to plan for resiliency in the face of ever-present cyberattacks.Sixty-eight percent of surveyed business leaders feel that cybersecurity risks are getting worse. They have a good reason. Attacks continue to get more sophisticated. They are also often perpetrated by large criminal organizations. These criminal groups treat these attacks like a business.In 2021, the average number of global cyberattacks increased by 15.1%.To protect your business in the coming year, it’s important to watch the attack trends. What new methods are hackers using? What types of attacks are increasing in volume? Knowing these things is important. It helps you better update your IT security to mitigate the risk of a data breach or malware infection.We’ve pulled out the security crystal ball for the upcoming year. And we've researched what cybersecurity experts are expecting. Here are the attack trends…