Having talked with over 100 venture-funded startups about their cybersecurity, we have found that one of the most common mindsets that stop leaders from investing the time and money in prevention measures is the belief that it won’t happen to them. Sure, they’ve heard a lot about high-profile breaches at Equifax and Uber and, of course, the Democratic National Committee, but why would hackers be interested in their relatively small startup?
People knowledgeable about security threats have a very different perspective. Former Cisco CEO John Chambers once said, “There are two types of companies: those that have been hacked, and those who don’t yet know they have been hacked.” Most security experts believe that, for most businesses, a cyber attack is no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when and how severe.
The scale of the threats is truly staggering
There is a cyber attack every 39 seconds
Since 2013, there have been 3.8 million records stolen every day
The Ponemon Institute estimated that 8.4 billion devices were targeted in 2017 alone and that there’s a 1 in 4 chance that a business will have an incident in a given year
Today, one in 13 web requests can result in malware to an unprotected computer
Even more mind-blowing is how fast these threats are growing
According to the Cisco Annual Cybersecurity Report, the total volume of events has increased almost fourfold between January 2016 and October 2017, which is an annual growth rate of about 225%
According to Cisco, ransomware attacks are growing more than 350% annually
There was an 80% increase in new malware targeting Macs in 2017
The damages related to cyber crimes are estimated to grow to $6 trillion annually in 2021
You might think that the criminals only target big companies because that’s where the money is. Not so.
Since small companies have much less protection, they are often the targets
43% of cyber attacks target small businesses
61% of breach victims in 2017 were businesses with under 1,000 people
According to a Cisco study, 53% of mid-market businesses have experienced a security breach
Experts estimate the chance of your house experiencing a burglary or break-in is 1.7% per year. The chance of your business getting hacked is about 25% per year—about 15 times higher. I’m sure you lock your door when you leave your house because you believe it can happen to you. Shouldn’t you take at least basic security measures with your business?
