Most enterprise companies invest heavily in cybersecurity resources, but small and mid-sized businesses typically do not, making them a better target for cyberattacks.
In our recent webinar now available on-demand, “Cybersecurity in the Age of AI,” expert Alex Rutkovitz Spigel of Choice Cyber Solutions shared why distributors need to reverse that trend and build a plan to protect their businesses today. The stakes are high:
1. Cyberthreats are rapidly increasing.
According to a 2021 PwC report, cyber incidents had increased 140% over the previous five years.
A big part of the increase is because businesses are now relying more on digital technologies. Every connected device is a potential entry point for attackers, including mobile, IoT and wearable devices. Users are often unaware of the risk they face when they plug in a new WiFi-enabled device. It’s also becoming more challenging for companies to manage this sprawl of data and devices.
At the same time, cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated with their tactics and can bypass traditional security measures.
AI has also complicated the security landscape. While this technology offers groundbreaking solutions for distributors, it has also exposed new vulnerabilities. Examples of AI attacks include:
- Deepfakes: the use of fake video or audio to convince the victim that an individual is saying or doing something they never actually said or did.
- Poisoning: the manipulation of training data for an AI model to compromise the integrity of that model. The result is a model making decisions based on faulty assumptions.
- Interference: the disruption or manipulation of an AI system, which leads to incorrect/bad outcomes. For example, it may allow a suspicious email to evade a spam detection system.
- Evasion: An AI-based system that avoids detection or mitigation by security measures such as antivirus software, IDS or other defense mechanisms.
- Extraction: the unauthorized access and retrieval of sensitive information or valuable data using AI.
2. The financial implications of a breach are significant.
Per IBM, the global average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million. The costs come not just from mitigating the breach, but also:
- Loss of revenue
- Lawsuits
- Attorney’s fees
- New systems
- Potential fines
Cybersecurity Ventures expects cybercrime costs to increase 15% over the next five years.
3. Operational continuity is at risk.
Cyberattacks can challenge operational continuity due to unexpected downtime, loss of data, financial losses, damage to reputation, non-compliance with regulations and supply chain disruptions.
4. Your reputation can be damaged.
Cyberattacks can tarnish your reputation and erode stakeholder, partner and customer trust if their private data is exposed. In turn, this can hurt customer retention, acquisitions and brand perception.
Rebuilding that trust can be difficult, even if you immediately address the incident and strengthen your company’s cybersecurity measures.
Want to learn how to build the right plan to protect your business? Check out our recent webinar on Cybersecurity in the Age of AI, now available on demand.
