As COVID-19 has forced companies to minimize physical operations and shift to remote working, and as our own dependency on digital technologies increases, the need for cloud and IT systems security is also increasing.
In 2020 alone, we saw a large percentage of people working from home relying on various Cloud technologies and virtual meeting platforms. However, what people might not know is that 2020 also saw a large increase in the number of security attacks and data breaches, which cost companies millions of dollars every year.
In fact, by 2025, cybersecurity is expected to inflict damages worth $10.5 trillion. Therefore, in this hacking era, cloud security and IT systems security are becoming increasingly crucial for businesses all over the world.
Why are Cloud Security and IT Systems Security Becoming So Important Today
The concept of cybersecurity has existed for about as long as the internet. However, things like cloud security and IT Systems security have recently started gaining more and more traction. Here are a few reasons why.
Types of Cyber Attacks
One problem with cyber-attacks and, subsequently, cybersecurity is their ever-evolving nature. Most businesses and individuals today don’t just have to deal with the usual phishing scams. Rather, they have to deal with tons of new types of cyber-attacks.
Since these threats and attacks are always changing, businesses often find themselves wholly unprepared to deal with them. In fact, what makes it even worse is the fact that these attacks are growing more sophisticated and advanced, which makes it even harder for small businesses and individuals to protect themselves from them.
Phishing still remains as one of the most common types of cyber-attacks as it is easy and effective. However, there are new threats emerging as well. There’s malware that can infect your computer or IT System in various ways and steal crucial information.
According to one study, malware in 2020 increased by 358%, and ransomware increased by 435%, which is even more dangerous than regular malware. Similarly, there are man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, DDoS attacks, SQL injections, DNS tunneling, and many more types of cyber-attacks.
Increasing Number of Tech Users
As mentioned earlier, the COVID-19 has forced businesses to shift from physical operations to remote working. Therefore, as more and more people work from home and use various technologies to carry out their daily work, the number of tech users in the world has rapidly increased in the past year.
Just before the pandemic, there were about 5% of full-time employees working remotely in the U.S. After the coronavirus, that number jumped to almost 30%, which was a drastic growth. While this certainly brought about certain benefits for companies and employees both, it also brought about an increase in IT systems security to deal with the increasing cybersecurity threats.
While working from home, there were more people logged onto the internet at all times. Moreover, unlike in offices where businesses might have some IT systems security measures in place, most employees had no such protection when working from home. As a result, as there were more and more tech users, more and more people were left exposed to these attacks.
Besides that, it’s not just the number of employees contributing to the increase in tech users. Overall, there has been an increase in the number of smartphone users and people logging onto the internet as well. This also increases the number of tech users, resulting in more targets for cyber-attacks.
Rising Cost of Cyber Attacks
Cyber-attacks can be incredibly costly for businesses for many reasons. This cost is not just limited to the loss of information. Rather it actually causes businesses to lose billions of dollars every year. In 2019, cybercrime cost the U.S. about $3.5 billion. That was just what was reported. In reality, it could be much more as many cyber-attacks often go unnoticed.
Moreover, most of these attacks are usually directed towards small and medium-sized businesses, which usually lack the resources to defend themselves properly. This does not mean that large businesses are safe. Just in the past few years, some of the biggest companies have experienced major data breaches. For instance, this includes Facebook, LinkedIn, Alibaba, and many more.
When businesses face cyber-attacks, they not only lose sensitive information and have their money stolen, but they face other consequences as well. After the breach, the businesses have to expend a lot of resources and employees to fix that breach and prevent it from happening again.
Similarly, if it happens repeatedly, they could end up losing their credibility in the market. This causes them to lose customers as well as investors, which further hurts their business. As a result, often, these companies can completely go out of business due to massive losses.
Cloud Security
Another technological movement within businesses has been to adopt cloud computing into their IT operations. Cloud offers a lot of benefits for businesses of all sizes.
It allows everyone to benefit from the most advanced technology at a fraction of the price of manual upgrades. Businesses can reduce costs exponentially by benefitting from massive economies of scale. It allows for better speed, agility, resilience, and much more.
However, along with all that comes the threat of cyber-attacks as well. While cloud services do offer better security than other IT systems, this does not mean they are invincible. Cloud systems can still be hit with malware or ransomware. Identity theft or data breaches can occur over cloud servers too.
If the company providing the cloud services is infected with a virus, it could leave all your information exposed and at risk. As a result, cloud security becomes even more crucial.