According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), more than 26,000 users fell victim to phishing, vishing, smishing and pharming attacks in 2018, suffering more than $48 million in financial losses. All four types of attack use social engineering to trick users into giving up sensitive information, clicking on a malicious link or attachment, or visiting a malicious website.

K-12 schools are collecting and storing more and more information about students, including personally identifiable information, behavioral assessments and health data, as well as grades, test scores and attendance. This data is a critical resource for evaluating students and developing personalized learning programs.

According to a recent report on data breaches in the U.S., the personally identifiable information (PII) of consumers remains the top target of cybercriminals. A whopping 97 percent of all breaches in 2018 involved the exposure of PII. Almost half (48 percent) of breaches affected the healthcare sector, while the cost of breaches in the financial sector jumped from $8 million in Q1 2018 to $6.2 billion in Q1 2019.

The increased exposure of PII comes despite a 12.4 percent increasein spending on security products and services.

According to a recent report from Internet Trends, 87 percent of all global web traffic in the first quarter of 2019 was encrypted. That’s a significant increase from 53 percent just three years earlier. Some industry analysts believe the entire Internet will be encrypted within five to 10 years.

Shadow IT is a growing threat, largely because organizations vastly underestimate the size and scope of the issue. According to one Cisco study, large organizations use an average of more than 1,200 different cloud-based applications and services — more than 13 times the number recognized by their IT departments.

According to the FBI’s 2018 Internet Crime Report, the financial losses associated with Internet crime increased by 90.8 percent from 2017 to 2018. The highest losses came from business email compromise (BEC) and email account compromise scams, with 20,373 victims losing a total of $1.3 billion.

Although it was written more than 2,000 years ago, Aesop’s fable of the boy who cried wolf serves as a cautionary tale for the modern information security professional. When security alerts become too frequent, people will eventually stop paying attention.

Even the smallest of small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) have finally let go of their old-fashioned paper filing systems, and now store most of their data electronically. Many have become more advanced, using sophisticated applications and leveraging data in new ways to support business strategy.

As your organization grows, technology needs grow. Even if you’re reducing your physical infrastructure footprint, you’ve probably added applications, software and services from different vendors.

Plus, new solutions are constantly being introduced and added to your technology mix, while many older tools never really go away.

You would think headlines about major data breaches on an almost daily basis would cause every senior executive to demand stricter cybersecurity measures. According to a new study conducted by MSI-ACI Europe, that’s not the case. More than six in 10 IT security professionals work with C-level executives who expect more lenient security measures for themselves.