Cybersecurity Ventures expects global cybercrime costs to grow by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion USD in 2015. This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history, risks the incentives for innovation and investment, is exponentially larger than the damage inflicted from natural disasters in a year, and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined.

The idea of moving from a capital expenditure (CapEx) model to an operating expenses (OpEx) model is not new. “X”-as-a-Service has been around for years. No longer is there a need for data centers on-site, massive computing power sitting idle that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in installation costs alone. Now, it’s just a simple keystroke to power up and have access to the computing power needed, and you’ll pay for what’s used, when it’s used.The same pay-as-you-go model is also used with IT security. Most managed security service providers (MSSPs) bill monthly, all while maintaining the security of your environment, thus reserving your capital for investments to work on your business, rather than on security. Diamatix is a value-added service provider – we are responsible for the costs of the hardware, software, implementation, and support. We can replace most of your cybersecurity CapEx spending with an OpEx model.

No matter how small your business or what industry you’re in, you likely have a treasure trove of information on your system.  It might not be in the form of customer credit card information, but no matter what it is, hackers can find a way to make money off stealing it.  Not only that, but they also find value in infecting your PC and utilizing it as a spambot to collect information and spread threats. The bottom line is, no matter how small your business is, you are still at risk for a cyber attack and that attack could easily take your business down (or at the very least cause you a lot of lost sleep).  When you compare this against the relatively low cost and ease of working with a cyber security professional (or at least using some effective security software), it really makes no sense to NOT have protection in place.

It is crucial to have a framework to serve as a guide when formulating security policies and developing a security program. When it comes to cybersecurity, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are plenty of great frameworks out there, with various families of standards depending on your firm’s needs. Some include:

• The ISO/SEC 27000 family for managing information security
• The NIST framework to help improve critical infrastructure
• The COBIT framework to govern and control IT infrastructure

With frameworks, you get a guide that will help you implement the processes critical to your firm. These frameworks also facilitate compliance with industry standards and regulations.

When it comes to threat detection, understanding is that there is not a single tool made for this ability is crucial. While there doesn’t exist such a thing as 100% protection, you need a collection of systems that integrate and interact with each other to give you the best chance of intercepting a threat. It is important that you and the team have the capability to aggregate information from multiple systems and analyze them to get a better understanding. Often, a data breach may lead to downtime, which could paralyze the operations of the organization. Part of your preparedness entails having a solid plan for both business continuity and data recovery. Such a plan can then be put in motion smoothly if a breach occurs. Two essential parameters that define business continuity and disaster recovery are the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).