The Organizational Impact of a Cyberattack

Graphic of blue computer code on a black screen with the words Data Breach and Cyber attack in red.

The impact of a cyberattack on an organization cannot be understated. In an increasingly digital world, the types and amount of cyberattacks is continuing to grow.

At SupportMyMac, we’ve been using SonicWall firewalls for over a decade. We do this because:

  • It gives our technicians an extensive knowledge base in the product: our technicians know SonicWall firewalls extremely well.
  • Using one product limits the amount of platforms that our technicians need training on, and can become experts.
  • SonicWall is an industry leader in unified threat management (UTM).
  • Referred to as a next-generation firewall, SonicWall combines a traditional firewall with other network device filtering functions to give users comprehensive threat protection.

SonicWall reported that in 2018, that their firewalls detected 432.2 million malware attacks. This number was up 103% from the previous year.

 

What organizations need protection?

Organizations of every size are targeted, but naturally, we hear more about attacks against larger organizations. One of the first concerns that comes up is client information. When personal data is exposed it impacts the organization’s image to the public. Here are some organizations that operate across Canada that were targets of cyberattacks:

  • Nissan Canada Finance: On December 21, 2017, Nissan Canada Finance reported that people who financed their vehicle purchase through them could’ve had parts of their personal information exposed. They contacted 1.13 million people at the time.
  • Uber: In 2016, many Canadian users of Uber had their names, emails and phone numbers hacked.
  • Bell Canada: In 2017, 1.9 million Bell customers had their emails exposed and 1700 people had their names and phone numbers exposed.

Next, let’s take a look at the City of Ottawa. Although they are not country-wide, they still have a large amount of stored data and files. The city takes great efforts to protect itself from any type of cyberattack. In 2018 there were 4,000 attempts to compromise data from workstations and laptops. Even with time and money spent to implement preventative measures, in November 2014 a hacker managed to hack the City of Ottawa website. It redirected users to a black and white screen with a dancing banana gif saying “we can destroy everything, this is a flex of our power. Please test us.” As a result, the website was down for 24 hours.

As you see, large organization are often targets of cyberattacks, which is why they must put preventative measures in place. The next question is how are smaller and medium sized organizations impacted.

 

The organizational impact of a cyberattack for a small business

Here are some statistics about online threats to small businesses:

  • In 2017, 43% of cyberattacks were aimed at small businesses.
  • There were 66,000 online banking attacks.
  • Number of ransomware attacks? There were 54,000.
  • There were 113,000 macro malware attacks.

Online Threats to Small Businesses (explained in text).

The data show that cyberattacks affect organizations of any size. Check out the preventative measures for small businesses outlined in Cybersecurity Tips and Tricks in a Small Businesses.

At SupportMyMac we work with a variety of security solutions including SonicWALL, BackgroundBackup for data protection and our managed security solution Bitdefender.

If you have questions about your organization’s IT vulnerabilities, our technicians would love to help. Connect with us below.

To find out how SupportMyMac can help your business with proactive and professional managed services, call us at 613-693-1964