Cybercrime on the Rise - Understanding Risk Management

Organizations all over the world suffer from increasing levels of cybercrime. Additionally, the inroads into security systems are costly, time-consuming, and can lead to long-term problems.  In a recent article, CloudWedge¹ states, “The issue of cyber threats to organizations is one that keeps growing at an alarming rate as intruders continue to explore every possible loophole.” One of the most effective tools that organizations have at their disposal is the use of risk management² to help mitigate the impact of cybercrime on their business.

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What Is Risk Management?

Risk management as defined by APM³ is a “process allowing individual risk events and overall risk to be highlighted and managed proactively to increase the chances of success of an enterprise by minimizing threats and maximizing opportunities.“ In the case of cybercrime, organizations must seek to understand risk from the perspective of how exposed the company is and what the initial and overall response of the company would be if such a crime were to be committed. Once a business is online, it opens itself up to potential cybercrime, and as such, must have systems in place to deal with breaches, should they happen.

Defining Cybercrime Risk

Cybercrime falls under the same blanket category as all other operational risk events. For businesses to understand their proclivity for risk, they must first break down the historical occurrences of that event occurring. Having a local log of cybercrime events that have impacted the company is the first step in risk management. The record can determine which systems on the network are most prone to being exploited. It can also suggest what parts of a company’s security system need to be shored up to deal with potential cybercrime.The inherent risk of cybercrime comes from its impact on the company’s financial state. A business can afford to overlook low-impact cybercrime since it doesn’t significantly damage the company’s production or value. However, as more impactful cybercrime events come to light, businesses need to take the initiative and figure out the root causes of those events. By doing so, the company can seek to avoid history repeating itself.It should be noted that companies need not rely on their own systems for this. Other companies in the same field can quickly provide data for analysis. The findings from this analysis can then be proactively applied to the business’ system. In this way, companies can seek to prevent criminals from attacking them and set up defenses before they are focused on by the criminal element.   

Avoiding The Cost of Cybercrime

Research shows that the average cost of cybercrime to organizations is roughly $13 million⁴. For small companies, a severe cybersecurity event could be disastrous. Mitigating problems has its place, but prevention and proactive analysis is the best methodology. By defining the problem, potential future incursions can be prevented, and the system made more secure by learning from the mistakes of others in the same industry. References:1. https://www.cloudwedge.com/2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_management3. https://www.apm.org.uk/body-of-knowledge/delivery/risk-management/4. https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2019/may/cybercrime-costs-201920981.html