A recent survey conducted by Verizon says that senior-level executives i.e C-Suite employees are 12 times more vulnerable to cyber attacks and 9 times more to data breaches.
Verizon 2019 Data Breach Investigation Report says that C-level employees are more prone to social engineering attacks as they hold the most sensitive information.
For the first time, Verizon’s latest report was compiled after analyzing data collected by FBI and reports that most of the senior level executives working for large companies are susceptible to cyber attacks, as hackers tend to gain financial motivation for launching attacks on them.
As organizations are showing a lot of interest in using edge based apps to deliver incredible insights, data points such as videos, supply chain data, and other sensitive info are becoming vulnerable to hackers due to insecure networks.
“So, in such scenarios, where new applications and architectures are being implemented security must remain paramount”, says George Fisher, President, Verizon Global Enterprise.
But according to the briefing given by Mr. Fisher in the report, C-Suite employees are always under pressure to deliver and so they casually click on every email they get without thinking about security and phishing attacks. And this is where hackers are gaining an upper hand by launching social engineering attacks which often yield profits to them on the financial scale.
Also, this year’s survey report highlights the fact that most of the companies in order to share and store info are using cost-effective cloud platforms exposing their digital assets to additional security risks.
Verizon’s report also highlights the fact that over 32% of data breaches which occurred in 2018 involved phishing and over 24% from them were related to ransomware.
The only way to deal with the situation is to educate C-level employees on cybersecurity and follow proper cyber hygiene in the corporate environment advised George Fisher.
