With so many threats facing modern companies, it can be difficult to know which threats should be addressed first. Risk quantification is a method that provides you with a numeric representation of your risks, which in turn allows you to prioritize those that are the most likely to happen or could cause the most damage.

The first nine months of 2020 saw 2,953 publicly reported breaches — 51 percent more than the same period in 2019; by the end of 2020, another 1,000 breaches pushed the total to 3,950. On average, security professionals took 228 days to identify a security breach and 80 days to contain it.

If there’s one thing you can expect from cybercriminals, it’s that they’re always looking for new ways to locate and exploit your organization’s vulnerabilities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines a vulnerability as a “weakness in an information system, system security procedures, internal controls, or implementation that could be exploited or triggered by a threat source.”

It doesn’t matter which industry you work in or how large your business is: every company with a desire to stay competitive and relevant needs a cybersecurity risk management plan. New information technology comes online at a breakneck speed, making our business transactions and processes easier, smoother and faster.

Cybersecurity threats are on the rise. Over the past year, we’ve observed a 148% increase in ransomware attacks and an 85% increase in phishing attacks targeting remote users. Worse still, these attacks are growing increasingly sophisticated, with threat actors using eight or more vectors in the same attack, often deploying multiple vectors within minutes of one another.

On July 19, 2021, The Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve System (Board), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released their proposed interagency guidance around third-party risk management. SecurityScorecard submitted comments in response to the proposal urging the agencies to include the adoption of security ratings to mitigate the cyber risk to financial institutions introduced by third-party vendors and suppliers.

2020 was a landmark year for data breaches. This year will likely be no different. More than 8 billion records were exposed in just the first quarter, a 273 percent jump over the same period from 2019. By the end of Q3 2020, a staggering 36 billion records had been exposed. By end of the year, data breaches had struck high-profile organizations including SolarWinds, Facebook, Microsoft, and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Cyberattackers and hackers try to exploit security vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to enterprise networks. Their intentions typically include installing malware, stealing sensitive data, launching supply chain attacks, or engaging in cyber extortion or espionage.

Digital transformation was well underway before the pandemic and in order to enable remote work and e-commerce, organizations have been adding new digital offerings at an unprecedented rate. Businesses are growing increasingly reliant on digital infrastructure with the expectation to secure a shifting cloud while managing a hybrid workforce and a growing IoT.

Global cyberattacks increased by 29 percent in the first half of 2021 compared to 2020, and we can assume that cybercriminals and hackers won’t stop their malware and ransomware attacks any time soon. A strong cybersecurity strategy is vital to reduce losses from those attacks, and a robust incident response plan should be a part of that strategy.