Over the last few years, more and more businesses have been migrating to the digital landscape. This digitisation of operations has helped to bring many benefits, including more productive workforces and better connections within hybrid teams. However, the increase in online data volumes means that without effective protection, business assets face an increased risk of being compromised by cyber criminals.
Experts report that the Australian economy loses up to $3.6 billion a year to cyber crime, costing targeted businesses an average of $276,323 per annum with more than half of this expense devoted to detection and recovery. The reason these numbers have grown so high is likely due to the recent advancement in technology available to cyber criminals. Fortunately, they are not the only ones that have access to technological advancements in the cyber security landscape.
Increased capabilities of cyber criminals
Once upon a time, cyber crimes were conducted by a single hacker writing his own code. However, with the recent boom in technology advancements coupled with time spent in lockdown over the pandemic, things have begun to look very different.
Cyber-Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS) has developed throughout this time – a vast online marketplace where the accumulated knowledge of experienced cyber criminals can be bought and sold. This allows amateur hackers to conduct complex cyber attacks on businesses and increases the number of attacks impacting organisations around the world.
The increased downtime throughout COVID has exacerbated this issue and allowed cyber criminals to further develop their skills and software. They are exploiting new technology in order to penetrate networks faster and make detection more difficult, then passing these capabilities on through CaaS marketplaces. Attack life cycles are shortening, with dedicated machines performing thousands of them a day.
This may seem dire, but with cyber security automation, you can help better protect your business.
The role of automation in cyber defence
Thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, cyber security automation is becoming available to businesses. Not only this, with the sheer amount of online assets and the rise of automation in cyber attacks, it is quickly expected to become a necessity. This will likely result in faster detection, quicker responses, reduced human error, relieved workloads, and stronger defences overall.
Automated mapping of your business security framework through AI and machine learning tools can help filter vast amounts of data to detect and mitigate potential threats much faster than manual procedures. They also help to monitor your network behaviour in order to locate anomalies and better protect your users. Along with providing better defence, cyber security automation can offer your business a range of other benefits.
Solution to talent gaps
With the sheer amount of data processing quickly becoming necessary for effective cyber security, an in-house team would likely need to devote hours of time responding to alerts, determining the level of risk, and containing attacks. However, there has been a worldwide shortage in the number of available cyber security professionals for some time, and this shows no signs of improving.
In fact, data from leading cyber security researcher, Cybersecurity Ventures, predicts that there will be 3.5 million openings around the globe in 2025. This makes it challenging to find experienced professionals capable of addressing the increases in cyber security needs.
With automated detection, response, and containment, these needs can be addressed without a cyber security team. This is especially significant for small businesses that may not have the budget to hire specialised teams in the first place.
Improved team efficiency
You may not have a team of cyber security professionals behind you, but your IT department will likely be the ones devoting their time to your cyber security management. Reducing their manual work with cyber security automation means freeing them up to do other things that can benefit your business.
If your IT team is spending all their time on threat detection and data analysis, this could potentially impact your business continuity. Other ICT issues can suffer, or your technology infrastructure could be neglected. This may cause you to miss out on opportunities to improve and optimise the way you do things.
With automation helping to reduce workloads, increase efficiency, and access responses, your team has the freedom to focus on other things.
More robust security
The difference between a minor and major cyber attack is often human error. With cyber security automation, you can help reduce the risk to your business.
Independent of human intervention, your automated processes can help to detect threats, determine their risk level, and get things contained potentially within seconds. They can also provide you with better insights and increased visibility of threats, while detecting patterns unseen by humans.
Automation means you can respond much faster to these unknown threats – which is one of the keys to minimising impacts. You’re also less likely to be targeted the same way twice thanks to machine learning that implements protection against known attack methods.
Talk to TBTC Brisbane City about your cyber security infrastructure
If you need assistance improving your small business security, our team can help. We’ll get to know your organisation, and conduct a cyber security audit to identify the biggest risks to your operations. From there, we can recommend the best tech solutions and cyber security services to protect you and your team. Talk to us today, and let’s get securing.
