As the digital transformation agenda gathers momentum worldwide, cyber threats will continue to rise with a diverse range of attacks, actors, and motivations. Enterprise cybersecurity incidents and data breaches will increase and evolve with growing connectivity trends, creating the need for ongoing defensive efforts from all businesses. As companies gain cybersecurity awareness and implement remote work and BYOD security measures, new threats will continue to pose significant information security risks.
According to the latest Breach Level Index (BLI), the number of data records compromised in publicly-disclosed data breaches surpassed 2.6 billion in 2017, up by 88% from 2016. Industries with the highest number of incidents were healthcare (27%), financial services (12%), education (11%), and government (11%).
Significant changes in the business environment owing to the rapid adoption of wireless communication and BYOD models have been identified as key catalysts behind the highest number of attacks taking place in North America in 2017. The number of records stolen in the region was almost double the record count from the previous year. The unprecedented level of security breaches is anticipated to trigger the need for advanced cybersecurity systems to support various data security requirements of internal office communication channels.
Part of the reason why Europe has suffered fewer data breaches can be attributed to the introduction of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2016, which is currently in the execution phase across the European Union. A recent Frost & Sullivan study revealed that the economic loss across Asia-Pacific due to cybersecurity breach incidents could hit a staggering $1.75 trillion – more than 7% of the region’s total GDP.
For these reasons, mitigating cyberattacks has become a top priority for enterprises given the dire financial consequences as well as the risk of business disruption and public scrutiny.
While most companies attempting to enhance communication security begin with email encryption features, many fail to consider securing voice, instant messaging, video and web conference calls – all of which can also be compromised by cybercriminals.
The need to secure communications with enterprise-grade end-to-end encryption for voice, instant messaging, and video conferencing is beginning to be recognized as a necessary step by senior executives in heavily-regulated industries as well as those that are potential targets for industrial espionage.
With the freelance workforce anticipated to rise by 2025, the ability to incorporate secure messaging into cloud-based UCC platforms used in businesses today is the next evolutionary step for industries worldwide (Figure IX). Exfiltration of sensitive data using sophisticated hacking techniques could shift from secure internal networks to cloud platforms as companies increasingly leverage cloud solutions, especially public could services, for improved work collaboration, file storage or delivery of anytime, anywhere unified communications. As such, organizations should strive to implement robust security standards to safeguard critical communication systems.
