Pub. 1 2021 Issue 2

12 | The Show-Me Banker Magazine WHY CYBERSECURITY KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT By Brad Prost, JMARK Business Solutions (AND HOWWE CAN ALL GET BACK TO SLEEP) Let’s talk about cybersecurity. Wait! Come back! I know what you’re think- ing: “It’s always cybersecurity with these I.T. guys! Don’t they have anything else to talk about?” It’s true. Those of us in I.T. talk about cyber- security a lot. We think about it a lot. We worry about it a lot. Cybersecurity keeps us up at night — sometimes literally, when there are patches to be installed or urgent vulnerabilities to be addressed. Hopefully, it is eye-opening to you that we are still talking about security even after all this time. And hopefully, that impresses upon you just what high-priority security should be when it comes to your technol- ogy. This is us trying to call attention to an issue so important that it often precludes talking about the I.T. topics we’d prefer to be getting into. In truth, if cybersecurity keeps me up at night in worry, I.T. strategy keeps me up at night in excitement. That’s what I want to talk about; I’d love to get into all the ways technology can make your bank more productive, dynamic and competitive. But getting into that without first making sure that your systems are safe would be jump- ing the gun because having a secure, stable technology environment is what buys you the opportunity to invest in I.T. strategy. 2020’s Other Big Story Was Cybercrime Look, given everything that happened last year, you can be forgiven if you missed the news about the increase in cybercrime. That’s a big part of what we “I.T. guys” are here for — to take care of cybersecurity so that you can focus your attention on other things. But you should be aware of the data and trends in general, if only so that when it comes to planning and budgeting to protect your bank, you are aware of just how dan- gerous things have become and just how critical it is to invest in security. Just a few of the stats that are keeping my eyes open at three in the morning: • There were more cyberattacks in the first half of 2020 than in all of 2019. (Crowdstrike) • The number of cyberattacks grew again from July to August 2020 by 30%. (SDC Executive) • On average, only 5% of most com- panies’ files are properly protected. (Varonis) • Data breaches exposed 36 billion re- cords in the first half of 2020. (RiskBas- ed Security) • The average time to identify a breach in 2020 was 207 days. (IBM) • The average lifecycle of a breach was 280 days from identification to con- tainment. (IBM) • The average ransomware payment rose by 33% in 2020 to $111,605. (Fin- tech News) • 65% of attackers used spear-phishing as the primary means of infection. (Symantec) • 95% of cybersecurity breaches are caused by human error. (Cybint) • More than 77%of organizations do not have an incident response plan. (Cybint) • There were 3,932 data breaches in 2020, more than double the 1,506 breaches of 2019. (RiskBased Security) Need I go on? Because sadly, I could. How about a few statistics specific to bank- ing, just for fun (you know, since we all get a kick out of panic-inducing data)? • The average financial services employ- ees have access to nearly 11million files from the first day on the job. (Varonis) • It takes an average of 233 days to detect and contain a data breach in banking. (Varonis) • The average cost of a financial services breach is $5.85 million. (Varonis) While we’re on the topic of nightmares, let’s talk a bit about the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic had on cybercrime. • Since the beginning of the pandemic, the FBI reported a 300% increase in cybercrimes. (IMC Grupo)