Cybersecurity trends to look out for in 2022

Cybersecurity is a term that is often mentioned today due to the use of technology and the rise of digital transformation for many businesses. It is known that cyberattacks are the fastest growing crime on a global scale and it continues to evolve at a rapid pace with a drastic number of data breaches per year. For casual users on the internet, you may experience some attack from time to time whether it is information disclosure, theft of electronic data, or damage to the hardware. If you have not gone through this experience, then it is because you have someone by your side who is assisting you with enhancing your cybersecurity.

Now you may ask, what exactly is cybersecurity? Think of it as a 24/7 bodyguard making sure that you stay safe wherever you are and at any given time. Cybersecurity is the protection of computer systems and networks from sensitive information or damage to software or hardware. Again, this may sound like an attack that can easily be avoided for casual users but we think of this on a bigger picture, large organizations and corporations can also be affected by this and can cost millions of dollars. In 2020 alone, the average cost of a data breach was around 3.86 million dollars on a global scale. Costs include areas such as the expenses of discovering a breach, the cost, downtime, lost revenue, as well as long-term reputation damage to a business and its brand. 

Cybercriminals tend to target customers’ personal information such as names, addresses, or identification numbers, and then sell them in digital marketplaces. When this happens, organizations will experience loss of customer trust and can even end up in legal action. To be able to avoid cyberattacks, organizations are now putting their resources to effectively upgrade their digital infrastructure and get a good return on investment. So what are the trends that you look for now in 2022 for cybersecurity?

Educating your employees

This may be the most important trend to look at as it’s the easiest way to save up resources in software development and enhance security. Training the people. As it turns out, there are a lot of phishing scams and ransomware attacks as they are the most popular methods for threats to casual users. On the other hand, being able to avoid these threats is easy by just educating them about the threats and how-tos of cybersecurity. Phishing scams and ransomware attacks have been so frequent in 2021 and businesses should really look into how to avoid these in 2022. 

Some phishing scams and ransomware attacks are as small as your employee clicking on a suspicious link or forgetting to update their software, or even just applying simple digital practices, then you’re already putting cybersecurity and data privacy at an all-time risk. To avoid this, have an expert come in and set up a webinar or talk on the practices of cybersecurity and its importance of it. Once your employees are well-educated enough to understand how cyberattacks work and the ways to protect themselves, then you’re already looking at improved cybersecurity within the workplace.

Cybercrime pays a lot

Cybercrime is what some may consider an actual job that pays a lot more than an average employee. With digital transformation being the form factor of today’s world, you can find many individuals today with the technical knowledge on how to defend against cyber attacks as well as how to infiltrate the system. This is where it becomes an issue as these people looking to commit cybercrimes to skirt the laws and regulations to be able to do anything from around the world. 

An example that we can look at is when one Russian national was offered a million dollars to install malware, a software designed to create malfunctions to the network or system, in his company’s network. If we look at a bigger scale, a US scientist attempted to steal trade secrets that were worth a billion dollars. This US scientist was sentenced to prison for 2 years but it shows that it really underscores the financial motivation that surely guarantees continuous cybercrime for years to come. Companies should really look to protest their most valuable assets and put as many resources as they can to defend their system.

Increase in cost for damages

This relates to the second point in which cybercrime pays a lot. With the damages that happen within the business, you can find the costs of fixing these issues to increase as years go by. As of 2021, the average cost of data breach passed $4 million for the first time and that number reach a historic number again this year in 2022. Ransomware attacks are also seeing an increase. In 2018, the average payment for ransomware was roughly $7,000. However, 2 years go by and the average payment becomes more or less $200,000.

Again, there is no expectation that payments to fix things will go down, and going deeper into it, opportunity cost and customer loyalty are also added facts for damages for cybercrimes. With that being said, businesses and large corporations should start seeing cybersecurity failures as a big deal and make it an important task to improve the digital infrastructure and sensitive data.

Cybercrimes are inevitable with the rise of digital transformation but limiting these damages and ultimately avoiding issues are possible and can save your business a huge amount of resources that be used to protect any sensitive information. 

Pimclick is a digital marketing and tech agency that continuously learns about the internet and the importance of cybersecurity. We can help optimize your security by providing quality control, front and back-end coding, and web development. Contact us to find out more about our services.