Cybersecurity remains on the back-burner despite rise in data breaches

It seems like a new data breach enters the news cycle every day.

On May 13, the City of Cincinnati announced about 2,000 current employees and their dependents, plus an unknown amount of former employees were impacted by a data breach involving census data.

Coca-Cola announced in April that it is investigating a potential data breach after a ransomware group claimed to have stolen documents from the company. The threat actors listed a cache of the data for sale on their leak site, asking 1.65 Bitcoin, currently converted to around $64,000.

And in February, Capitol One reached a settlement where the credit card company would pay $190 million to resolve claims it jeopardized customer information in a 2019 data breach.

As a result of the Cincinnatti breach, the city is reviewing its policies and processes for RFPs and sensitive information training. The city will also be implementing additional training.

According to the plaintiffs in the Capitol One settlement, their information would have been secured and protected if Capital One took reasonable cybersecurity measures.

Are these avoidable breaches a sign to a greater trend? Versa Networks recently surveyed 1,200 American business owners over a week in January, asking them questions regarding how worried they are about potential data breaches, how important they feel reliable network security is, if they have experienced a data breach, what security measures they have in place to prevent them, and what effect data breaches have on consumer trust.

According to Versa, 89.9% of business owners think cybersecurity is important, and 63% actually see it as one of the most important parts of running their business. 69% also say the threat of data breaches plays a role in their business decisions.

However, those numbers don't tell the whole story. Versa also claims 27.5% of business owners surveyed say they feel as though they've cut corners when it comes to cybersecurity. Furthermore, over half of business owners that don't think they employ strong enough cyber security (51.50%) say it's due to a lack of funds.

Versa notes that according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, 1,861 data breaches were reported in 2020, but 2,397 were reported in 2021: that’s an increase of over 28%.

Despite all the numbers above, business owners seem to be aware of just how important cybersecurity can be for a business' operations and optics.

"Almost three in four business owners (72.5%) believe that trust is a very important part of business-consumer relationships, and 92% believe data breaches make consumers lose trust in a business with 77% saying that a data breach could lead to customers looking elsewhere," Versa said.

"A business is nothing without its customers, and it’s important that customers feel their personal and financial information is safe with the businesses with whom they choose to work."

Almost half (45.5%) of the survey respondents are currently worried about potential data breaches, with 42% saying their concerns have been directly impacted by the increase in data breaches in the U.S. It looks like there might be a discrepancy between how important business owners think cybersecurity is, and how confident they are in their own systems and practices.

Half of the respondents use a third-party IT provider to handle their network security and 67% have made the decision to use 2-step verification for software or apps they use for work. While outsourcing network security and instituting verification processes can be a good start, it may not be enough to keep information as safe as it can be.

Again, this begs the question why wouldn’t business owners institute stronger security measures?

As data breaches continue to become more prevalent in society, it feels imperative that business owners take more care and put more funds into their cybersecurity.