4 Reasons to Invest in Cyber Security

4 Reasons to Invest in Cyber Security Cyber threats are real, and they’re growing more sophisticated. To protect yourself from cyber attacks, you need to invest in cloud security solutions. But what is that?

Cyber security experts at Zscaler explain, “A cloud environment is only as secure as its weakest point, so effective cloud security means multiple technologies working together to protect data and applications from all angles. This often includes firewalls, identity and access management (IAM), segmentation, and encryption, though security needs can vary by the type of cloud deployment.

To know why you need them, read further.

Data breaches

Data breaches are a big risk for businesses, and the costs associated with them can be significant. A data breach can cause you to lose customers and incur hefty fines from regulators. It can also lead to reputational damage as well as downtime—not only will your business be unable to operate during an attack, but backups may not fully restore all data either.

Data breaches are costly in a number of ways:

• The costs of hiring IT experts who investigate the breach and mitigate it (if possible)
• The cost of credit monitoring services or paying for each new account opened with another financial institution
• Paying fines levied by regulators who investigate after you’ve reported the attack

Hackers

Hackers are a real threat, and they’re getting better. Today’s hackers are highly motivated and sophisticated. They can be driven by money, fame, political beliefs or a combination of these factors. One thing is clear: if you want to keep your data safe from hackers, you need to hire cyber security experts who understand the psychology of hackers and how they operate.

Downtime

You might not think about it often, but there’s a cost associated with downtime. In fact, according to Gartner Inc., the average cost of downtime is $6,600 per minute. That’s $1.2 million per hour! And that’s just for your business alone—the impact on your customers and other stakeholders adds up fast.

Some of the costs incurred during an outage include:

• Customer service calls or emails – When the lights go out on your website and apps (or if they’re inaccessible due to a cyber attack), you can expect phone lines and email inboxes to light up as well. You’ll need staff time to handle these inquiries while IT works to restore service or help users recover their data as quickly as possible.* Replacement costs – If malware or ransomware encrypts all of your customer data files—as happened with Marriott hotels in 2016—you may need to pay thousands of dollars in replacement costs

Reputation

Many companies and organizations are willing to invest in cyber security because they understand that their reputation is at stake. When it comes to cybersecurity, the most important thing you can do is protect your data and your customers’ data. The best way to do that is by hiring a reputable security firm or consultant. You need someone who understands how businesses work, has experience with different industries, and knows how to keep both your company and its clients safe from hackers or other threats.

Despite the risks, there are still many reasons why you should consider investing in cyber security. Whether it’s for your company or for personal use, these four points represent some of the best reasons that we think you should invest in cyber security: data breaches, hackers, downtime and reputation. Although each of these issues deserves its own dedicated article (and we may do so at some point), here we’ve listed some of the most important ones for now!