US Companies Face Cyber Attacks; Live in a State of Cyberseige

When JP Morgan was recently asked about reported cyber attacks, their spokesperson replied that they were “closely safeguarding information and would notify anyone affected” and went on to add that companies of its size experience cyber attacks “nearly every day”. It seems a rather casual reply for an event that may have resulted in the theft of multiple gigabytes of sensitive data!

Yet that is the reality today. In fact, the financial industry, and most of the business world, has been described as being in a state of almost perpetual cybersiege. Cyber attacks have become so commonplace that most businesses have almost come to expect it.

Which is why we have stopped paying attention, because breach is so normal. And breach is so normal because corporations don’t train their employees correctly on how to avoid it.

In the case of the attacks on financial institutions this week, however, officials briefed on the attack said there had been multiple, very sophisticated, intrusions. They are thought to have been “far beyond” the capability of normal hackers and seem to be part of an international wave of nationalist cybercrime campaigns against financial institutions.

It is expensive to battle a cyberseige. JPMorgan Chase said in its 2013 annual report that it planned to spend more than $250 million and devote about 1,000 people to cybersecurity in 2014. According to a report on cyber security and the banking sector released by the New York State Department of Financial Services in May, more than three-quarters of financial institutions expect their information technology security budgets to rise over the next three years. That might be the silver lining in what is a cloudy outlook for corporate security.

John Sileo is an an award-winning author and keynote speaker on data breach. John specializes in making security entertaining, so that it works. John is CEO of The Sileo Group, whose clients include the Pentagon, Visa, Homeland Security & Pfizer. John’s body of work includes appearances on 60 Minutes, Rachael Ray, Anderson Cooper & Fox Business. Contact him directly on 800.258.8076.

Posted by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo in Cyber Data Security and tagged "Cyber attacks", Chase Breach, Cyber, Cyberseige, Data Breach, John Sileo, Sileo.