A data breach occurs when sensitive information is exposed to the public without authorization. These events are growing in popularity, costing businesses an average of US$4.35 million per event. Unfortunately, many companies are unknowingly still repeating the same mistakes causing some of the biggest breaches in history. To prevent your business from becoming another breach static, adjust your cybersecurity program to the proven breach prevention strategy outlined in this post.

‍Cyber insurance is becoming increasingly important and necessary as cyber attacks become more sophisticated and frequent. Healthcare is one of the most targeted industries because of the valuable medical data they handle and the lack of proper cybersecurity protections. Although cyber insurance doesn’t prevent security breaches, it provides a safety net for businesses to cover their financial losses.

One of the biggest indicators of a suspicious or unsecured website is whether or not the site is HTTPS-secured. In many cases, spoofed, phishing, malicious, or typosquatted websites use HTTP instead of HTTPS, which has encryption and verification protocols built in to ensure safe data transmission between servers and browsers. The main difference between HTTPS and HTTP is that HTTPS establishes a secure internet connection via encryption, whereas HTTP does not.

A cybersecurity analyst, also known as an information security analyst, specializes in the security of networks and IT infrastructure. The role of cybersecurity analyst has a relatively broad job description, offering great opportunities for individuals looking to enter the cybersecurity industry and branch out into various cyber-related career paths.

According to a report released by IBM and Ponemon, the healthcare sector has the highest rates of security breaches and cyber attacks globally. The average cost of a data breach for healthcare organizations is around $10.1 million, while the global average for all industries sits around less than half of that amount, at about $4.35 million.

The January 2022 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) data breach was caused by an unpatched critical vulnerability in the Single Signe-In tool developed by Zoho, a business software development company. After exploiting the vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2021-40539), the cybercriminals deployed offensive security tools to help gain access to ICRC's contact database, resulting in the compromise of more than 515,000 globally.

The Kasya ransomware attack occurred through the exploitation of CVE 2021-30116, an authentication bypass vulnerability within Kaseya VSA servers. This allowed the hackers to circumvent authentication controls and executive commands via SQL injection, giving them all the control they needed to deploy their ransomware payload and encrypt a segment of Kaseya's internal data.

Few companies expect to be at the center of a newsworthy data breach incident. However, according to some sources, cybercriminals can access 93% of businesses in an average of two days. Around 150 million data records were compromised in the third quarter of 2022 alone. Businesses are increasingly reliant on data systems such as cloud computing and remote working to compete in the modern workplace.

As we enter 2023, we look back at the past year in cybersecurity and make predictions for next year. We saw the rapid transformation of digital initiatives and policies that either saw businesses rise above and adapt or fail to react in time to protect themselves. Industries such as healthcare and education were hit hard by cyber attacks and are at risk of experiencing continued assaults on critical data. What will the world of cybersecurity look like in 2023?

In 2022, cyber incidents in businesses and organizations worldwide have skyrocketed, with data breaches being one of the main concerns. Almost 109 million personal accounts and emails were compromised in Q3 2022 — a 70% increase compared to Q2. Particularly, Australia has seen a significant rise in data breaches, especially in its financial services and healthcare sectors.