We in the United States lose $100 billion per year from cyber crime activities. Cyber crimes can target individual people, small and large businesses alike. However, organizations of 2,500 employees or fewer have recently become the most popular targets of attack. Attacks are on a continued rising trend and are driving the now popular (and needed) Cyber Security market, expected to grow to a $120.1 billion industry by 2017.
Mobile Devices and Social Media sites like Facebook are new outlets for cyber crime, with criminals using these large communities as means to find more victims. For example, criminals can use Facebook to create phishing scams and spam e-mail. Also, by downloading a malicious phone app, criminals could obtain your passwords for mobile banking or other important accounts that you access from it. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure – be cautious with what you install on your phone by installing from known legitimate vendors in iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, etc.
Jeffrey Dunker
MCC Cyber Security Awareness Committee
10/23/2014 |