Cloud infrastructure companies spend millions of dollars on Cybersecurity every year. They have teams that conduct cybersecurity war games to test security vulnerabilities before they could be exploited by hackers. Cybersecurity testing is becoming a necessity for organizations as they must comply with data protection regulations. This is one of the reasons for increase in the value of Quality Assurance activities as well. In this blog, we will look at those reasons in detail.
Cybersecurity is used to protect computers, mobile devices, networks, electronic systems, and data from unauthorized access. Cybersecurity testing helps detect vulnerabilities in the system that enable unauthorized access. Cybersecurity testing is gaining important every day because of data breach cost and its implication on company reputation. Global cybercrime costs increased by 27.4% in the last year. The number of newly evolved ransomware attacks in 2017 is over four times more than in 2016. An organization is hit with a ransomware attack every 40 seconds; at least 71% of these attacks are successful. If we investigate these statistics, it is noticeably clear how badly companies need to deal with cyber-attacks and defend them.
The companies that perform cyber-security testing regularly, ensure safety of their data and stay compliant with the industry security standards. On an elevated level, penetration test has 5 phases.
The tester starts with planning and reconnaissance and narrows down the test scope and goals. The second phase is to evaluate how the application will respond to various intrusion attempts. The third phase is gaining access; in this phase, the tester tries to uncover the vulnerabilities. The fourth phase is maintaining access, used to observe the vulnerability to achieve a persistent presence in the exploited system. Finally, the fifth phase is to generate the report for additional analysis and remedy.
Here are a few points to get a better understanding of why Cybersecurity is a necessity:
1. CyberSecurity testing helps stay compliant Cybersecurity:
Testing is important to meet compliance or regulatory requirements (HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA, SOC (Service Organization Controls), etc.). All companies must comply with the regulations, which positively impact the business by protecting the clients’ interests. Information can be a significant resource, particularly when they contain restrictive data.
Organizations have all types of data on their clients, and if personal information were to wind up in the wrong hands, extreme results like fraud and monetary misrepresentation could affect thousands of individuals. As customers become more mindful of this threat, organizations need to promise their clients that they are protected to work with by assuming full liability in guarding personal information. This is the place where information protection guidelines become the most crucial factor.
They assist organizations with consoling the overall population that working together (for example, sharing information) with them is protected, yet this also guarantees decency in the market by rebuffing the individuals who neglect to meet their duties. Customer trust is key to getting more business, and if an organization meets the compliances, it would be a big plus for them as they can highlight this to their customer. Cybersecurity testing is necessary to meet these compliances.
2. CyberSecurity testing is useful for Data Protection
In an interconnected world governed by innovation and the web, information traversed the globe. (plagiarism) Information Security is of foremost significance to clients and much more to organizations. Regarding worldwide business, obtaining information from any place can present difficulties to associations working together in a few geologies globally.
Clients give delicate information, for example, banking information or medical care data relying upon the administrations they profit from. If a piece of information is disclosed, this can cause them to lose their trust in a company forever. Besides, it is not simply the close personal data of clients in danger, but also an organization’s or a person’s thoughts, licenses, and plans worth countless dollars. Information leaks can be damaging for any business and can hamper the standing of an association. Long stretches of challenging work in building a brand name can be destroyed by one extreme information break.
The new Data Breach Investigative Report distributed by Verizon forecasted the normal misfortune for a break of 1,000 records somewhere in the range of $52,000 and $87,000. Specialists state organizations have 1 out of 5 possibilities of turning into a casualty to an information break. Information breaches are one of the reasons for losing customers. Especially in a banking system, a data breach can cost more than we think; moreover, people would not trust that bank to keep their money.
3. Brand Reputation
It is important to understand that trust and the bad reputation the executives are firmly associated with. When an information leak happens, it is a genuine trial of the standing administration approach taken and the security you have made with your clients over the long haul. Information leaks will influence the degree of trust with your present client base and affect your business tasks, influence your image worth, and financial specialist offer; these are all the expenses of an information break.
The most recent research by FTI Consulting from March 2020 revealed that companies expect a 9% drop in their global annual turnover due to a data privacy crisis. A few years back, when Uber encountered a data breach, they tried to cover it by paying the hackers, but this was a straightforward abuse of information assurance law. This resulted in the termination of Uber’s CSO, and Uber was made to pay a $148 million settlement as well as face the social campaign #DeleteUber. There was a great deal of negative exposure around then with Uber, and the contenders saw the chance to challenge Uber, who was hitherto the undisputed market pioneer. Uber could have avoided this situation if they had conducted a security test on their system before launching the application. All these vulnerabilities could have been found out earlier, and Uber’s reputation would have remained intact.
4. Investors/Clients Assurance
Cybersecurity testing gives investors/clients assurance that their data is saved and there will not be any data leakage or threat. Clients are very much interested in using their personal or social data, and if the company is not gaining the faith of investors or clients, they cannot secure investors in the longer run. The same happened with WhatsApp when they announced their new privacy policy of sharing the data with Facebook. Even after announcing the news, WhatsApp lost many customers; even after clarifying, WhatsApp was still unable to retain all the customers.
5. CyberSecurity testing can Identify Threats
Cybersecurity testing is also useful to identify and eliminate the threats in the system. It is better to know the weak areas of the system to avoid the upcoming hacker attack and protect the customer’s valuable information. Each business is under steady danger from many sources. From the greatest Fortune 500 organizations down to the littlest of mom-and-pop stores, no business is 100% protected from an assault. The fundamental truth is that there are too many such dangers out there to forestall them all viably. For instance, as verified by driving antivirus organization. https://usa.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2017_kaspersky-lab-number-of-the-year , “The quantity of new vindictive records handled by Kaspersky Lab’s in-lab discovery innovations arrived at 360,000 per day in 2017.” That is 250 new malware dangers consistently. In any case, malware is not the solitary danger out there; there are many greater online protection dangers and organization weaknesses in the presence that malignant entertainers can endeavor to take your organization’s information or cause hurt.
Conclusion:
We live in a computerized time that comprehends that our confidential data is more powerless than any other time in recent memory. We live in a world organized together, from web banking to government foundations, where information is put away on PCs and different gadgets. A part of that information can be sensitive data, regardless of whether that be protected innovation, monetary information, individual data, or various kinds of information for which unapproved access or openness could have negative outcomes.
Digital assault or cyber-attack is currently a worldwide concern and has given numerous worries such as hacking and other security assaults that could jeopardize the worldwide economy. Associations communicate sensitive information across networks and to different gadgets over the span of organizations and online protection to ensure data and the frameworks used to measure or store it.
As the volume of cyber-attacks grows, organizations and associations, particularly those that bargain data identified with public security, wellbeing, or monetary records, need to find a way to ensure their delicate business and individual data. Security testing by a professional Quality Assurance company can solve these issues and will help to boost the business.
