Summer’s “HOT” Topic: Data Breaches

June 27, 2018

What do the following companies have in common – Target, Home Depot, Adobe, Sony, TJX Companies, Anthem, ebay, Equifax, and JP Morgan Chase? If you guessed that these big brands were all victims of huge customer data theft, you would be correct. As a total these companies had eight hundred, seventeen MILLION data records stolen. That number is amazing when you consider that the United States has approximately three hundred twenty-five million residents. So, most likely someone you know has had their data stolen numerous times. Because these events are happening so frequently, and are so large it becomes difficult to understand what does this mean?

These large companies who have been attacked provide similar paths to regain our consumer trust: apologize, present a plan of their new cyber security infrastructure, and provide two years of credit monitoring to the consumers whose data has been stolen. In the end hackers target these companies because they have large pools of key pedigree demographics. So, for the time being small to mid-size companies are safe from hackers or data theft? That is entirely false. As with every business cycle, hackers are no different. They will target the large soft targets, but as those companies invest in cyber infrastructure new targets will appear and hackers will move onto more vulnerable companies.

This begs the question – Do you have a Cyber Security strategy for your business? Are you prepared when hackers make you a target?

USI spends a great amount of time consulting with our clients on security. The word security in our world has become all-inclusive to include security officer, patrol vehicles, investigations, security technology, and yes cyber. Many clients we work with have excellent IT departments who have taken the proper precautionary steps, but they have been hesitant to bring in outside experts to help with an in-depth examination, and stress test. This hesitation could prove costly as once a breach is exposed the damage is done. We encourage all clients as we move into the second half of 2018 to address the biggest security concern for ALL business’s – Data theft. Contact Director of Sales & Marketing, Sean Meehan ([email protected]) to learn more about how USI can help with Cyber Security.