Kaspersky: 31 percent of cyber-attacks lead to job losses

When a data breach occurs, the effects outweigh the financial sphere, the reputation and breach of the privacy of a company’s customers. A breach can also significantly affect the careers of those employed in that company. According to a new Kaspersky Lab and B2B International report, in the case of 31 percent of last year’s data breaches, there were people who lost their jobs. Of these, 29 percent of SMEs and 27 percent of large companies were experienced employees in areas not related to IT.

A data breach in a company can be an event with a significant impact on both customers and company employees, according to the latest B2B International report and Kaspersky Lab “From data boom to their curse: risks and rewards protection of personal data “. The survey shows that 42 percent of companies worldwide had at least one data breach in the last year, of which two-thirds of cases affected customer identifiable personal data (41 percent for SMEs and 40 percent for large companies). As for the staff involved, not everyone keeps their jobs afterwards.

Employee categories fired after a data breach demonstrate that the incident could affect anyone in 2017 losing their jobs from general executives to regular employees who exposed customer data.

Obviously, for companies this means more than lost talent: 45 percent of SMEs and 47 percent of large companies have had to pay compensation to affected customers, over one third – 35 percent and 38 percent respectively – have had problems in attracting new customers, and over a quarter of SMEs (27 percent) and 31 percent of large companies have been forced to pay penalties and fines.

Data out of control is a risk

In today’s companies it is virtually impossible not to store sensitive personal data: 88 percent of companies collect and store personally identifiable personal data about their customers, and 86 percent collect and store such customer data, according to the report. In addition, in today’s increasingly complex environment, new regulations, such as GDPR, mean that the storage of personal information also comes with the need for compliance.

The way organizations store data makes these risks even more tangible: About 20 percent of sensitive customer and company information is outside of the organization’s perimeter: in the public cloud, BYOD devices and SaaS (Software as a Service), which makes it safe to control and keep data flow a challenge for companies.

Data protection measures. Beyond politics

The report shows that 86 percent of companies have a data protection and security policy in place. However, such a policy does not in itself guarantee that the data will be properly managed.

Security solutions that can protect data across the infrastructure – in cloud, on devices, applications, and anywhere – are needed. Cyber security awareness among IT and non-IT staff is mandatory and needs to be improved because more and more business units are working with data and so they need to know how to keep them safe.

“A data breach may have a devastating effect on the whole business and, moreover, may have an impact on people’s lives – customers or employees, so it’s a good opportunity to remember that cyber security has tangible implications in day-to-day day and looks at everyone,” says Dmitry Aleshin, VP for Product Marketing, Kaspersky Lab. “Given that data is now moving from one device to another and cloud, and regulations like GDPR become mandatory, it is vital for organizations to pay more attention to data protection strategies.”

Kaspersky Lab offers solutions for different company requirements in terms of endpoint protection, DDoS prevention, hybrid cloud security, complex security threats, and cyber security services. More information on the Next Generation portfolio for large companies and products for SMEs is available on our website.

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