What are the biggest cybersecurity issues for organizations? Indeed, in the past 2 years, the number of cybersecurity incidents has increased by more than 500% increased. Digitization and working from home are important causes of this, but the arsenal of cybercriminals and hostile state actors is also growing.

For example, an average phishing email can hardly be distinguished from a real email. As a result, attackers have achieved several major successes and organizations often feel compelled to pay the cybercriminals. Money that they then use to improve their attack techniques.

Nowadays, cybercriminals are also attacking other types of organizations. In particular, local governments, healthcare institutions, hospitals, retail organizations and school institutions have been targeted by malicious parties in the past two years. Why is it that many organizations are still insufficiently able to protect themselves?

Cybersecurity expert Rob Musquetier lists the 9 biggest cybersecurity issues.

1. Ransomware is an increasing problem

It was briefly mentioned in the introduction, but preventing ransomware is one of the biggest cybersecurity challenges. Not only does your Identity & Access Management policy need to be in order, your employees also need to be trained to prevent ransomware. Your organization must be up to date and prepared in all its facets against today's cyber threats. However, cybercriminals are getting smarter, often have more resources than a few years ago and have a broad arsenal of weapons to shut down your organization or steal data. Where you have to fix 100 new vulnerabilities every week, one or two is already enough for them to carry out their attack successfully.

However, ransomware is still one of the primary attack techniques today. And unfortunately, our opponents are often successful enough to continue doing so in the coming years.‍

2. Phishing emails are getting better

Do not click on 'links', watch for spelling mistakes and check the email address. These are the well-known tips for recognizing phishing emails. Even today, these tips are part of an average security awareness training, but today's phishing emails are too good to recognize them alone.

Cybercriminals know so much about you and your organization that a phishing email is almost indistinguishable from a real one. To recognize phishing emails, you will have to train your colleagues in a different way and include them in the latest developments in this area. One Security Awareness Program which provides this helps your colleagues to better protect themselves against malicious parties from outside.

3. Limited mandate of Chief Information Security Officers

Today, the average Chief Information Security Officer's to-do list is almost longer than that of the Prime Minister. This alone is already a problem, especially when combined with a limited mandate. Often, the CISO has to convince management or a CEO first. In both cases, high-ranking decision makers often have less or little affinity for cybersecurity-related measures. They see, in the often good and much-needed ideas of the CISO, mainly a high cost. A clear mandate with an appropriate budget would be quite a godsend for many CISOs.

4. Lagging lifecycle & patch management

You read it very regularly: “Hackers got into Organization-X because system Y wasn't patched in time.” You can still secure your organization so well, if you do not implement the necessary new software versions or updates (on time), your IT infrastructure will be as leaky as a basket. Vulnerabilities and zero-days follow each other rapidly in the present time, so it's very important to keep your systems up to date. Updating systems automatically goes a long way,. It is therefore better to periodically carry out a vulnerability scan or pentest to be carried out by a specialized company.

5. Bad configuration & change management

In many organizations, configuration and change management is an overlooked issue. But without a clear, up-to-date view of your IT landscape, it is impossible to adequately protect it against today's threats.

With an unclear and incomplete picture of your IT resources, you run the risk of missing or misprioritizing necessary control measures. As a result, available resources (e.g. budget and manpower) are used incorrectly or inefficiently. At the time of an actual security incident, it is often unclear exactly what the impact is, who is responsible for what and where the biggest risks lie.

6. No risk inventories

Preventing all disruptions, data leaks and hacks is a pipe dream in today's society with limited resources. The resources you do have should be used as efficiently as possible. As an organization, you want to protect your organization against the maximum possible number of risks. But to do this, you do have to do a risk inventory, and that fails many organizations. What risks can your organization afford? One Information Security Risk Assessment offers a solution here.

7. Knowledge level is limited

This problem was also mentioned in paragraph 3, but is so important that it should also be addressed as a separate issue. The level of knowledge of many senior managers and decision makers is too limited for market developments. New technologies and attack techniques follow each other in rapid succession. The consequence is that only professionals who deal with the matter on a daily basis are expected to set up the right defense.

8. Good IT Security staff is scarce

Good IT Security staff is scarce. This is an understatement. IT Security professionals are extremely scarce, let alone that you also want someone who is above average competent. The demand from the market is far greater than the number of trained professionals or reschoolers.

Especially on the Identity & Access Management side and highly trained SOC specialists, there is a lot too short. Not only is the number of IT Security companies in the past five years redoubled, there is also a high demand for specialists from other sectors.

Are you looking for help to take your information security to the right level? Dan is Navaio the solution.

9. Too little budget for IT security

Of course, “too little budget for IT security” cannot be missing from the top 9 of the biggest cybersecurity problems. Where a few years ago, a modest budget was sometimes enough to protect yourself against a cyber attack, a CISO or IT security department now needs a substantial budget to protect itself. It is often not a question of whether you will be attacked, but when.
A cybercriminal can put pressure on your business continuity through one bad defensive entrance. This should logically ensure that there is sufficient budget available for IT security-related issues. Unfortunately, this is not the case with many organizations (yet).

Do one or more of the above points sound familiar to you? And would you like to discuss this with one of our specialists without obligation? That's possible. We offer a free consultation to help you get started with today's challenges of information security. click here to make an appointment.