Plenty of things can happen in a minute. And when it comes to your security online, those 60 seconds are enough to send your business into a tailspin. As companies around the world look to increase their online presence and create more touchpoints with their customers, the attack surface grows ever larger.
In what RiskIQ calls the “evil internet minute,” there’s a scary amount of illicit online activity going on. Check out the eye-watering losses that what will have happened by the time you’ve read these stats:
7. In 2018, Cybersecurity costs the global economy some $600 billion a year (that’s $1,138,888 per minute). Yet, businesses around the world spend an average of $171,233 per minute on information security.
6. The average cost of cybercrime for large global businesses in 2017 was $11.7 million (which translates into $222 per minute).
5. There are 2.7 million cybercrime victims a day–(1,861 per minute).
4. Ransomware costs organizations $8 billion per year, which is $15,221 per minute. Approximately 1.5 companies fall victim every 60 seconds.
3. There are 1,274 new variants of malware every minute.
2. 22.9 phishing attacks happen every minute
1. There are 2.9 billion leaked records every year, which equates to 5,518/minute
It Only Takes a Minute
There’s an almost endless variety of ways in which you can become the next victim. The fear of surfing online can almost stop you from switching on your laptop. And while most cybercrime statistics that grab the headlines are about big businesses, a study by Switchfast Technologies found that small businesses are a much easier and more frequent target.
Since they lack the dedicated security personnel to act or react in the event of a cyber attack, it’s often the smaller businesses that suffer the worst. And the scariest thing is that as much as 60 percent of SMEs that suffer a cyber attack go out of business within just six months.
While cybersecurity experts are stepping up to the plate, there are continuously more inventive forms of attack, from cryptomining to phishing, spinning up malicious mobile apps, and even breaking in via a third-party hack.
If your company is like one-in-three US businesses with no cybersecurity plan in place, it’s about time you got one. It only takes 60 seconds to become a victim of cybercrime and, in many cases, it could have been avoided or contained before sending you into the red.