Black Hat Survey Reveals New Cybersecurity Concerns

According to Black Hat's recent survey, about 69 percent of surveyed attendees at the 2018 Black Hat United States security conference believe that a successful cyber attack on the critical infrastructure of the U.S. is imminent within the next two years

The survey, which interviewed 315 respondents, found out quite a bit about the state of businesses and cyber security, with only 15 percent of respondents feeling confident that the government and industry is ready for a major breach of critical infrastructure. The organization has surveyed individuals since 2015 on security matters, with views not optimistic for the future. Cybersecurity is much more than a matter of technology, with personal privacy, politics, business, ethics and risk bundled into the package. Here are the nation's biggest cyber security concerns today.

Facebook Security

About 65 percent of attendees say they’re limiting their use of Facebook or not using it at all after the recent controversies with the company’s security practices, the report found. Another 44 percent said that they would keep their Facebook accounts but minimize use, with 14 percent saying they’ve never used the website over security concerns period.

A whopping 55 percent of organizations say that they’re going to advise internal users and customers to rethink about the data that they are sharing on Facebook. That means over half of all organizations surveyed are particularly concerned with their Facebook usage.

Cryptocurrency

Not many are fond of cryptocurrencies, Black Hat found. Businesses are not pushing for the development of this field.

• Only 29 percent of respondents found it a good idea to invest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and only if you know what you’re doing.
• 43 percent found Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies just simply to not be a good idea no matter what.
• 15 percent of respondents say they participate in the act of buying and selling cryptocurrencies.
• Just 13 percent sayid they participate in cryptocurrency mining.

Individual Defenses

Each business has its own cyber security setup with its own unique set of defenses, tailored to its product offerings and liabilities. In the survey, respondents discussed many common cyber security defenses and their effectiveness. These are their findings:

• 38 percent of respondents say that the weakest link in IT defenses is users who violate security policies and are too easily fooled by social media engineering attacks.
• Another 18 percent say that a lack of comprehensive security architecture and planning that goes beyond “firefighting” is the weakest link in IT defenses.
• 7 percent of respondents say that it’s a weak link when there’s an overabundance of data and event information that takes too long to analyze.
• Cloud service vulnerabilities take up about 6 percent and signature-based security products that can’t be updated take up another 6 percent.

In this day and age, protection against cyber threats is more important than ever. Contact your broker today to ensure that you have sufficient cyber liability insurance for your business.

About Axis Insurance

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