Who’s in the Driver’s Seat - IT Leaders or Bad Actors? Maintaining Control of Your Company IP

Information technology controls (IT controls) are designed to govern how IT systems operate and ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. Strong IT controls work to prevent data breaches, unauthorized access and operational disruptions. These controls are critical for protecting the IT environment and ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

Today, many organizations face the challenge of maintaining IT control in the face of persistent and evolving cyber threats that present real risk to the security and confidentiality of company intellectual property (IP). In this environment, organizations need secure by design and default mobile messaging technology that locks out bad actors and puts IT in full control of safeguarding business-critical IP.

Cybercriminals going for the win

Cybercrime is forecasted to cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, these costs include “damage and destruction of data, stolen money, lost productivity, theft of intellectual property, theft of personal and financial data, embezzlement, fraud, post-attack disruption to the normal course of business, forensic investigation, restoration and deletion of hacked data and systems, and reputational harm.”

The rising cost of cybercrime is unfortunately not surprising considering that bad actors are evolving their tactics to exploit vulnerabilities in expanding enterprise digital ecosystems.

According to Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) research, there were 2,116 data compromises through the first nine months of 2023 with an estimated 233.9 million victims.

The EY 2023 Global Cybersecurity Leadership Insights Study found that organizations surveyed are facing an average of 44 significant cyber incidents a year, and detection and response times are slow with three-quarters of organizations taking an average of six months or longer to detect and respond to an incident.

Ransomware, a type of malware that prevents or limits users from accessing data, files, devices or systems, making them inaccessible and unusable, remains a pervasive threat to enterprises. This damaging and disruptive cyberattack is projected to cost victims more than $265 billion annually by 2031.

Bad actors are also looking to harness the power of new technologies like generative AI to develop and deploy increasingly sophisticated malware and ransomware code. Using generative AI, cyber criminals are also automating the creation of phishing and smishing messages with accurate sounding content that more easily dupes people into believing the legitimacy of the communication.

It's clear bad actors are going for the win when it comes to accessing sensitive enterprise information.

Maintaining control of IP

A critical part of thwarting bad actors and maintaining control of company IP is securing enterprise communication. In a digital-first era and environment of increasing cyberthreats, there is no doubt that secure business communication and collaboration should be elevated to a strategic priority for every enterprise.

Today, communication and collaboration tools are a fixture in companies across the globe that need to support and connect remote workers and distributed teams. This has not gone unnoticed by cybercriminals who are targeting well-known vulnerabilities in consumer-grade messaging apps and unsecure collaboration tools and tailoring their attack mechanisms to these channels.

Findings from a Check Point Research report show that cyberattack numbers increased 38% in 2022 compared to 2021, driven up “by smaller, more agile hacker and ransomware gangs who widened their aim to target business collaboration tools.”

To maintain control of their IP, enterprises need mobile messaging and collaboration technology configured for maximum security and privacy.

That means NetSfere.

NetSfere protects corporate data and intellectual property (IP), supports effective regulatory compliance and facilitates secure communication and collaboration in the work from anywhere environment.

An enterprise-grade secure messaging platform that encrypts conversations end-to-end, NetSfereensures that all information shared within the platform is safe without sacrificing employee productivity.

NetSfere gives corporate IT full control over communications relationships. From centralized management which manages users and devices through an IT administrator’s control panel to remote wipe which destroys sensitive enterprise data on devices no longer authorized to access it to device-to-device encryption, NetSfere is architected with always-on IT security and control that reduces business risk while increasing productivity in hybrid and remote workplaces.

While cyber threats are a massive challenge, securing enterprise communication is really very easy. Secure by design and by default, NetSfere locks out bad actors and puts IT in the driver’s seat to safeguard business-critical IP.