The advent of the internet has changed in the way business is done. Industries which were traditionally brick-and-mortar have moved online. The number of online transactions being completed has also increased drastically over the last few years. The number of users of the internet has also increased manifold.

There are around 4.39 billion internet users in 2019, an increase of 366 million (9 per cent) against January 2018.
— Global Digital

The advent of technology has brought along the menace of cybercrimes. It has hit the internet and its users very hard. Gradually, it has grown to be the single most significant problem facing the users of the internet. Cybercriminals have unabatedly attacked and ruined the reputation of many renowned organizations. We will now discuss some interesting but critical cybersecurity facts.

Some of the most interesting facts

The hackers are known to break down the layers of security of any organization and cause severe damage to the information by either stealing and destroying it or installing harmful software.

The number of cyberattacks continues unabated. In 2016, the major industries that were attacked were retail and technology along with the government organizations. The reason for these industries being attacked is the quantum of personal data they store. Now, the advent of technology has led to significant advancement in the Internet of Things sector. No wonder that as of 2019, it has borne the brunt of the majority of the cyberattacks.

Let us now check into the devastation that such attacks could cause. The most massive attack ever was against Yahoo – when over three billion user accounts were affected. The breach at Marriott exposed almost 500 million users, while the one at Equifax in 2017 led to over 145 million user accounts being compromised.

Given the amount of data that gets compromised, the attacks result in millions of dollars of losses to the industry. It is estimated that there were around one malicious attack every 39 seconds, according to research conducted by the University of Maryland.

Most of the attacks were done using either phishing or ransomware. According to a report from the Herjavec Group, more than of all attacks arise from phishing emails. It could be anything – requesting a download or forwarding a document we should not act upon. Another way of attacking that cybercriminals use is by injecting some ransomware. As per Comparitech, enterprise ransomware increased by almost 12% and accounted for 81% of all infections.

Overview of specific industries and cybercrimes

The e-commerce industry: The e-commerce industry has been growing at a scorching pace and has been the cynosure of the cybercriminals.

Digital payment accrued to a total of over US$ 4,130,000 million in 2019; out of this number, mobile payments were rooted at over US$ 745,000 million. Digital payments are expected to witness a CAGR of 1 2.8% till 2023.
— Statista

It is said that the global e-commerce industry is expected to rise by 20.7% in 2019 to US$3.535 trillion. Leading markets like the Asia Pacific and Latin America will lead the charge.
— eMarketer

The growth in online transactions has also led to a rise in the number of cybercrimes across the world. There have been frequent attacks by cybercriminals targeting internet users and even the e-commerce industry. According to GBHackers, there could be more than 150 million attacks using serious threats like attempts to log in, frauds against a credit card, as well as botnets and phishing. According to reports, the Magecart Group 12 was able to hack nearly 277 e-commerce websites using supply-chain attacks.

The healthcare industry. Another industry plagued by cyberattacks is the healthcare industry. The industry stores lots of personal records, apart from health records as well. It is reported that the industry has the highest number of ransomware attacks. The attacks could result in almost US
$6 trillion in damages over the next three years. What is more alarming for the industry is that there were 350 different variants of ransomware.

How can we tackle this problem?

The best option is to encrypt the information by using the HTTPS protocol. HTTPS helps in securing the communication between two systems, e.g. the browser and the webserver. Also, we would like to mention that search engines like Google are penalizing the websites that do not use this protocol. The best option is to use an Organization Validation SSL Certificate that confirms the physical and legal existence of the organization and prevents any data intervention. Many services providers like Comodo have vast experience in providing these SSL Certificates and can be bought online also.

Conclusion

The rapid changes in internet technologies have not deterred the hackers one bit. They stay a step ahead of most of the organizations; especially, the small ones. They cause a tremendous threat to us by putting sensitive personal at risk of being tampered. All organizations must have a robust IT policy that includes periodic audits of the systems and networks. We should also imbibe the procedures of cybersecurity amongst all the employees to ensure the organization is safe from any cyberattack.