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Sophisticated Cyber Crimes and DMS Online Security

Written by Samantha Kaylee on March 05, 2021

In this digital age, where a sea of IoT devices encircle our personal and professional lives, businesses seek effective and efficient information-sharing tools to manage their operations. A DMS (Document Management System) thus becomes an ideal solution.

With billions of users going online, things like social networking, using a mobile app, sending direct messages have become the norm. It's only natural for businesses to deploy DMS to manage their workload and keep track records of each document's business in the current era.

Through a DMS, businesses can finally eliminate paper waste and manage all of their essential documentation through a system to store and distribute documents to yield greater efficacies

According to a recent study by Meridian, organizations can spend up to $20 to file a document, $120 to Mejronly 5-15% of their time reading the information, while more than 50% of their time is spent looking for it in the first place.

This goes to show how much cost a business can save through DMS.   

Increase in Cyber Crimes

On the other hand, we have seen sensitive data being released through unsavoury means in the past couple of decades. Security risks have grown as cyber attackers are becoming more rampant with new tactics. No wonder we find establishments worldwide heavily investing in a trustworthy cybersecurity program from a reliable cybersecurity company.

Whether it is a Facebook account, Twitter account, or any other social media account these days, security breaches are becoming increasingly possible. The global risk concerning cyber threats is undeniable. Cybersecurity statistics clearly show that global spending to prevent cybersecurity threats has increased at an alarming rate.

This calls for greater security awareness and security awareness training for internet users with mobile devices and web browsers, especially on the dark web. The situation is so dire that even if it calls for well-known personalities like Bill Gates and Elon Musk to make an appearance at the White House to urge people to stay safe online wouldn't be considered enough.

While attacks grow, businesses are in severe need of critical infrastructures to keep their financial information safe and preventing themselves from becoming potential victims of the next wave of organized crime.

Is our Dependency on Technology to Blame?

While security professionals will refrain from making such statements, there is no doubt that our dependency on technology has rapidly increased with time. Crime statistics and cybersecurity spending show a correlation that is hard to deny. 

Cybercrime trends clearly show that a social media platform is no place to share your personal information. As attacks grow, the cybersecurity market has become progressively competitive. Antivirus software is not enough; nowadays, we need infrastructure protection.

For managed security, we need managed security services provider that deals with everything related to computer crime and its nature. Since if we do not tackle this at the corporate security level, then it can quickly become a risk to national security as well in the coming years. A cybercriminal nowadays is more than adept knows how to hack accounts.

Along with the various tactics that they use, several methods come into play. These include third-party interventions, getting access to security controls, bitcoin scam, data breach, phishing attacks, ransomware attacks, DDoS attacks, phishing emails, and identity theft, to name a few.   

Top 5 Cyber Crimes

To help you understand why internet security is a big deal and why we all need robust cybersecurity with complementary awareness training, here are some of the most notorious incidents where cybercrime damages touched the roof in recent times.

1. According to cybercrime statistics, Gonzales, a hacker from Miami, could steal tens and millions of credit card and debit card numbers from over 250 financial institutions. Not only was the scale of this security threat ominous, but he also gained access to the payment network of companies, including the 7-Eleven convenient store chain.
2. In 2002, a DDoS attack aimed at all 13 domain name systems root servers in the US brought the internet to its knees. Top cybersecurity professionals conclude that while the attack lasted only for an hour, had it been any longer, it would have brought the internet to a standstill.
3. Turning back the wheel of time, in 1999, Americans became aware of this situation as authorities became involved, leading to law enforcement and further action. Yes, this is indeed a reference to the Melissa Virus created by David Smith and ended up costing $80 million in damages. The virus would infect the Microsoft Word documents and automatically make them into an attachment via email by emailing itself to the first 50 contacts on an infected operating system via Outlook email address box.
4. Another incident in 2009 was when Google's headquarter in China detected a security breach in mid-December and started implicating the Chinese Government. Forget personal data. The hackers gained access to several of Google's corporate servers, and tons of intellectual property, as a result, was stolen.
5. Ashley Madison, a Canadian dating site for married people to meet other married people, was hacked in 2015. Susceptible data, including banking details, users' real names, and private and sexual information, was stolen. It was the Impact Team that was responsible for this. In the end, it was found that Ashley Madison itself was to blame for insufficient security measures in the first place.

Cyber Crime Statistics

While businesses nowadays are using a media kit to promote themselves through various channels, little do they know that crackers are currently working to augment an attack vector to exploit their next victim.

Hackers and those with malicious intent are merely up to no good, with spear-phishing being labelled a regular tactic which they use to gain confidential information. Here are some cybercrime statistics published by Varonis, a data security and analytics company.

1. During the first half of 2019, data breaches exposed nearly 4.1 billion records.
2. The worldwide security market is forecast to reach $170 billion in 2022.
3. By the end of this year, the estimated number of passwords used by machines and humans worldwide will reach the 300 billion mark.
4. Hackers are attacking systems every 39 seconds and, on average, 2,244 times a day across the globe.
5. The average cost of a data breach is $3.2 million as of 2019.
6. In 2017, 147.9 million consumers were affected by the Equifax Breach.
7. Internal actors were found to be involved in over 34% of data breaches.
8. The Wanacry Virus of 2017 infected over 400,000 machines belonging to over 100,000 groups in at least 150 countries. This led to a total loss of $4 billion in the process.

No wonder a cybersecurity job market is looking for individuals with tremendous potential these days. Students studying cybersecurity during their higher education years buy essays these days to devote more of their time unravelling the truth behind recent attacks.

By 2021 cybersecurity talent crunch is forecasted to create 3.5 million unfilled jobs globally. They will be required to study the Attack Surface of major applications and systems and be required to deliver in-depth security audits for companies and businesses across the planet.

Conclusion

The IC3, better known as the Internet Crime Complaint Center, has been overloaded with several reports being submitted worldwide. The current conditions have even the World Economic Forum dishing out precautions and advice for businesses to stay safe online. There are several bad actors out there that are involved either directly or indirectly with criminal activities.

In the coming years, we need to deploy threat intelligence that uses artificial intelligence to provide a safer haven for online businesses. We need to make social media safe for people to use and find a viable solution that secures mobile usage for the next generation.

There should also be measures taken to improve the current status of women in cybersecurity. If we do not tackle this diligently, then even a security market can become conflicted, resulting in long-lasting and devastating effects.

Our incident response mechanisms and overall security research need further improvements. Ventures need to have a keen lookout for social engineering tactics during their business development process. Hopefully, in the coming years, better technology and security measures at a much grander scale can help us weed out criminals before they leave an impact on our lives.

Author Bio: Samantha Kaylee currently works as an IT Assistant at Dissertation Assistance. This is where higher education students can acquire professional assistance from experts specializing in their subjects and topics. During her free time, she likes to binge-watch sci-fi series on popular streaming channels.