I read recently that disregarding cyber risks is a way of inviting trouble and unnecessary attention to any organization. Cyber threats is nothing new, everyone is a target taking many forms whether it is by some form of scanning or targeted phishing. For example, Sophos describes the naughty nine which are all some form of services that can be purchased for a price (i.e. access, malware, phishing, crypting, etc). "Just as information technology companies have shifted to “as-a-service” offerings, so has the cybercrime ecosystem." [1] This is no surprise that ransomware is still the one thing that affect the most organizations and, in the end, cost the most if you have no choices but to pay the ransom. In the case of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, lockbit , "[...] issued a brief apology and offered SickKids a free decryptor to unlock its data." [2] but this is far from always being the case. In the end, they did not use the decryptor but that isn't always the case.

All companies have some form of valuable data where it stores and collect sensitive information such as customer data, financial information or intellectual property. When that information isn't adequately protected, it can also cause injury to partners and suppliers.

Protection of data isn't always because we need to get more tools but can also involve sound security principles such as active monitoring, detection and resolution of suspicious behavior onPrem and in the cloud of endpoint and of all that data collected. Cyber attacks are a threat to all businesses of any size and the cost of ignoring them can be very costly. 

[1] https://assets.sophos.com/X24WTUEQ/at/b5n9ntjqmbkb8fg5rn25g4fc/sophos-2023-threat-report.pdf
[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/sickkids-attack-1.6705843
[3] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/average-data-breach-costs-hit-a-record-4-4-million-report-says/  

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Guy Bruneau IPSS Inc.
My Handler Page
Twitter: GuyBruneau
gbruneau at isc dot sans dot edu