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Enterprise Security Challenges Surge with Spike in Work from Home: Study

remote work, Remote workforce security

There has been a sudden surge in enterprise security challenges owing to the spike in work from home. According to the newest study by Juniper Networks, sudden changes in priorities, poor network visibility, and lack of time were cited as key issues for security professionals struggling to cope with new norms. The study commissioned by Juniper and conducted by Vanson Bourne explored the attitudes, perspectives, and concerns of 1,000 senior IT networking and security professionals from various industry sectors across the globe.

The traditional approaches toward securing enterprise networks have been amplifying newer challenges due to budget constraints and an increase in remote workforce. According to the study, 97% of respondents admitted that they were specifically experiencing ongoing enterprise security challenges when attempting to secure their organization’s network effectively. These were IT challenges that were present even before lockdowns and work from home formats were established. The peril was only heightened by prolific and highly motivated bad actors who have been taking advantage of every opportunity to thrive and remain undetected.

Other highlights of the study include:

  • 86% of respondents felt that they need to improve network reliability and performance.
  • 87% of respondents pursued a security solution to give better visibility across existing apps, reducing false positives, and improving threat response times.
  • 63% of respondents stated that their organization positions IT security as a cost center rather than as a value-driving asset.
  • 97% stated that they had been obliged to spend money on breach mitigation in the last twelve months, with the average cost being more than $276,000.
  • 95% of respondents stated that they have been working with multiple vendors in pursuit of their overall security deployment goals.

“There is a clear narrative among senior IT and security professionals that is overwhelmingly confirmed in this survey. Put simply, they know network security is hugely important, with failure increasingly carrying significant risk for their organization. For me, the most compelling statistic is that ninety-nine percent (99%) agree that a threat-aware network would bring benefits to their organization,” said Samantha Madrid, VP of Security Business & Strategy, Juniper Networks.

She continued, “As workers become more distributed and threats become more sophisticated, security professionals are faced with new and emerging challenges that put enterprises at even greater risk than before. Companies need threat-aware networks that bring speed and agility to enterprise security, coupled with a Connected Security strategy that allows all network elements to work together for increased visibility and action where it matters most. The old way of thinking about security will no longer suffice for those companies battling a new norm.”

Evil Internet Minute: 1.5 Cyberattacks on Computers with an Internet Connection

Evil Internet Minute: 1.5 cyberattacks on Computers with an Internet Connection

Research from threat intelligence firm RiskIQ disclosed the growing volume of malicious activities on the internet. In its report “Evil Internet Minute,” RiskIQ revealed that cyberattacks cost organizations $24.7, with a year-on-year increase of more than $2 every minute. The research also estimated that it will have a per-minute global cost of $11.4 million by 2021, a 100% increase over 2015. Cybercriminals are using sophisticated attack techniques by leveraging the ongoing pandemic, accounting for a 30% increase in Magecart attacks since the outbreak began.

Key Findings

  • 1.5 cyberattacks on computers with an internet connection per minute
  • 16,172 records compromised per minute
  • 1 vulnerability disclosed every 24 minutes
  • Organizations face 375 new cyberthreats per minute
  • 5.5 domain infringements detected per minute
  • 1 Magecart attack every 16 minutes
  • 1 COVID-19 blacklisted domain every 15 minutes
  • 35 COVID-19 spam emails analyzed per minute

Tactics Used

According to the research, attackers are using a variety of hacking techniques such as phishing, domain infringement, and supply chain attacks for monetary gain and cause large-scale reputational damage, political motivations, and espionage.

RiskIQ CEO Lou Manousos, said, “The sheer scale of today’s threat activity is driven by a variety of factors, including that cybercrime is easier than ever to participate in, and better threat technology makes cybercriminals more effective and wealthier than in the past. The OSINT and RiskIQ threat intelligence in the ‘Evil Internet Minute’ paint a vivid picture of the cybercrime RiskIQ and our industry colleagues are tackling in 2020.”

“These stats show threat activity is widespread, but also show the power of threat intelligence in defending the enterprise. More knowledge, greater awareness, and an increased effort to implement necessary security controls make a huge difference in stopping these threat actors in their tracks,” Manousos added.

Data Governance in the Age of the Home Office

Unprotected Server Exposes Facebook Scraped Data of 12 Mn Users in Vietnam

The COVID-19 pandemic took many businesses by surprise. Companies that were vehemently opposed to remote work because of security and compliance concerns have found themselves forced to reconsider their stance at an alarmingly quick rate. This means that remote work policies were put together hastily to ensure company operations continued as lockdown measures swept the world.

By Filip Cotfas, Channel Manager, CoSoSys

The reality of remote work as the new normal has meant that all the carefully crafted data protection frameworks and data governance policies have suddenly become insufficient in the face of a completely new status quo. Mostly because, the premise they were built on, employees working together on a company network within a designated office space, ceased to exist overnight. Even businesses that allowed remote work rarely made provisions for such extreme cases as their entire staff working from home simultaneously for extended periods of time. Remote work policies were thus stretched thin or proved inadequate.

The transition to remote work sent many companies into chaos, with data security practices becoming more lax. Cyberattackers have taken advantage of the situation to prey on vulnerable employees. Malicious attacks against corporate networks and servers also saw a surge as the pandemic slowed down response teams dealing with attacks. The shift towards mass workforce mobility also leads to a similar spike in data movement, putting highly sensitive information at a higher risk of loss and theft.

An Increase in USB Drive Usage

Removable devices, and USB drives, in particular, have long been a thorn in the side of data protection strategies. Pocket-sized, easy to misplace or steal, they have been responsible for countless data leaks over the years. To make matters worse, in recent years, USBs have also become a popular malware infection tool. However, there is no denying they are practical, easy-to-use tools that are an essential part of most work environments.

USBs and removable devices are most often used by employees when leaving company premises, whether to attend business meetings and conferences or to work remotely. The reason for it is fairly simple: this is when they need to take relevant files and documents with them and it’s easier to simply copy them onto a USB, especially if the files are big, to ensure they have access to them at all times.

And while this might be an understandable practice in normal circumstances, when put in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it becomes highly problematic. As employees find themselves leaving familiar office spaces, they may feel the need to take confidential files and sensitive data with them to ensure they can perform their duties effectively from home. As a consequence, a large amount of sensitive data is likely to wind up either in the cloud or on vulnerable removable devices such as USBs, from where it can be easily accessed by outsiders or stolen.

A Rise in Internal Threats

Mass layoffs in many countries have led employees fearing dismissal to copy corporate files and sensitive information onto their personal devices, in the hope they may prove useful to them in case they lose their jobs. Many times, they feel entitled to take these files as they may be the result of their work over the years.

This desire to secure something for the future can be very dangerous for companies for two reasons. One is the possibility that their employees, embittered by job loss, may take sensitive data about their business operations to their competitors or use them to discredit the company.

The second is that the data copied, although never used maliciously by the employees that took it, maybe stolen or made public leading to potential fines for companies for noncompliance with data protection regulations.

Protecting Data While Working Remotely

Companies can take measures to curb the transfer of sensitive data onto removable devices through the use of tools such as Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions. These can block computers’ peripheral and USB ports, thus preventing connection of any such devices to company endpoints or allowing only trusted devices like encrypted company-issued removable devices to connect to them.  Data defined as sensitive can also be blocked from being transferred onto popular cloud services or file sharing websites through DLP tools.

Enforced USB encryption can help mitigate data vulnerability on removable devices. Through it, an encryption solution is deployed automatically to any trusted USB storage device connected to a company computer. Once installed, any files copied onto the USBs will be encrypted and accessible only through passwords.

Another particularly useful feature of DLP solutions is their ability to not only control but monitor sensitive data and log its movements. Admins are thus notified when an employee attempts to copy or transfer sensitive data. In this way, companies can keep a close look at important information and immediately detect any increases in data transfers whether via the internet or through portable devices.

About the Author

Filip CotfasFilip Cotfas has an impressive background in sales and project management. As a Channel Manager at CoSoSys, he is utilizing his extensive skills for the daily operating efficiency with a focus on South Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Europe markets. Filip`s main responsibility is handling the existing Customer portfolio, as well as acquiring additional revenue streams, mainly by coordinating with the existing partners or enabling new partnerships, in order to help more customers benefit from our award-winning Data Loss Prevention solution. In the past years, he has been developing sales strategies for his markets and built a successful relationship with channel partners.

Disclaimer

Views expressed in this article are personal. The facts, opinions, and language in the article do not reflect the views of CISO MAG and CISO MAG does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

Iranian Rookie Cybercriminals Target Global Corporates with Dharma Ransomware

Log4j, Iranian Ransomware Actors, SpoofedSccholars, second-tier targets, NIOPDC

Group-IB researchers have detected attacks on multiple companies across the globe that are carried out by Iranian newbie threat actors for financial gain. These attacks have been actively orchestrated since at least June 2020. The threat actors are using Dharma ransomware along with a set of other publicly available tools to target companies specifically in Russia, Japan, China, and India. Once compromised, the gang typically demands a ransom between 1-5 Bitcoins (BTC). The threat actors seem to be naïve since they did not have a fixed plan about what to do with the compromised networks.

 Key Highlights 

  • Iranian newbies are using Dharma ransomware, also known as Crysis, to target multiple companies in Russia, Japan, China, and India.
  • All the targeted organizations had hosts with Internet-facing RDP and weak credentials.
  • The operators typically demanded 1-5 BTC as ransom.
  • The operators used Defender Control and Your Uninstaller to disable built-in antivirus software.

The Modus Operandi

In a detailed investigation carried out by the research team at Group-IB, a threat intelligence and cybersecurity company, it was found that the source code of the Dharma ransomware has been up for sale in the underground market since March 2020 and is distributed as ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS). This is the exact code that has been used by the Persian-speaking newbie threat actors for Dharma ransomware distribution.

  • The operators first scanned ranges of IPs for hosts with Internet-facing RDP and weak credentials in countries like Russia, Japan, China, and India. They used a popular software called Masscan for doing this. Incidentally, the same technique was employed by Fxmsp, an infamous Russian underground seller who made a fortune selling access to corporate networks.
  • On identifying the vulnerable hosts, the attackers executed a brute-force attack to have their way into the system. On some instances, they also attempted elevation of privileges using the exploit for CVE-2017-0213.  On establishing an RDP connection, they decided on which tools to deploy for moving laterally. Additionally, the attackers used “Defender Control” and “Your Uninstaller” to disable built-in antivirus software.
  • They then scanned for accessible hosts in the compromised network using the publicly available tool Advanced Port Scanner. The adversary used the collected information to move laterally through the network using the RDP protocol.
  • Finally, the attackers dropped and executed a variant of Dharma ransomware and executed it manually to demand a ransom in the range of 1-5 BTC.

Oleg Skulkin, Senior DFIR Analyst at Group-IB, said, “The fact that Dharma ransomware’s source code has been made widely available has led to the increase in the number of operators deploying it. It’s surprising that Dharma landed in the hands of Iranian script kiddies who used it for financial gain, as Iran has traditionally seen a lot of state-sponsored attackers engaged in espionage and sabotage. Despite that, these cybercriminals use quite common tactics, techniques, and procedures that have been effective.”

The researchers have suggested to change or maintain a close vigil on the default RDP port 3389 as the attackers usually use this for brute-forcing into the system.

 

Notarization Fail! Apple Inadvertently Approves Malware on Macs

Apple Notarization, operational technology

Apple is known for its tight security measures to prevent malicious software from landing in its app store. However, security researchers found that Apple’s macOS app notarization process inadvertently approved a malware disguised as an Adobe Flash installer.

What is Notarization?

Apple introduced the notarization process to ensure that their apps are malware-free. In notarization, app developers are required to submit their apps to a scanning process to detect for any malicious codes or other security issues. If an app does not pass notarization, it gets blocked by the built-in security function.

A Fail in Notarization

Mac security researcher Patrick Wardle discovered samples of the Shlayer adware that are notarized by Apple. The Flash installer adware campaign, which featured a malicious code, was not blocked by the built-in security function. The installer would run and download its payload on the device if a user clicks on it.

It is stated that the code could have been modified to pass or break the detection that Apple might have had for this adware. Wardle’s discovery led Apple to revoke the notarized payload and disable the developer account to further prevent the malware from running on Mac computers.

Malware on App Store

Avast, a maker of digital security and privacy products, recently discovered and reported three fleeceware apps to Apple’s App Store, which overcharge users, do not provide the services they promote and appear to be fleeceware. The apps are available on the Apple App Store as Beetle VPN, Buckler VPN, and Hat VPN Pro, and according to data from Sensor Tower, a mobile apps marketing intelligence and insights company, the apps have been downloaded over 420K, 271K, and 96K times, respectively, between April 2019 and May 2020. A fleeceware has a characteristic of overcharging users for functionality that is widely available in free or low-cost apps.

BEC Attacks Become a Highly Remunerative Line of Business for Cybercriminals

BEC Scammers Exploit Email Auto-Forwarding Rules, FBI warns

Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks have become a highly remunerative line of business for threat actors. A new research from the APWG (Anti-Phishing Working Group) revealed how enterprises lose their wealth to BEC attacks. In its “Phishing Activity Trends Report,” APWG highlighted that the average wire transfer loss from BEC attacks surged from $54,000 in Q1 2020 to $80,183 in Q2 2020, as cybercriminals expected high returns.

In a BEC attack, cybercriminals first steal legitimate business email account credentials, which are later used to launch financial fraud campaigns like fraudulent email messages, requests for out-of-channel funds transfers, and deleted accounting trails.

BEC- A Lucrative Attack Vector

BEC attackers demand 66% of funds in the form of gift cards, stating that the average amount of gift cards requested during Q2 of 2020 was $1,213, down from $1,453 in Q1 of 2020. In addition, the number of phishing sites detected in Q2 of 2020 was 146,994, down from the 165,772 observed in Q1 of 2020.  Phishing attacks targeting the social media industry increased in Q2 by about 20%, with the most targeted attacks against Facebook and WhatsApp.

Threat from Russian Hackers

The research also found the movement of a BEC attackers’ gang in Russia known as “Cosmic Lynx,” in addition to the West African scammers targeting organizations with BEC attacks. It is found that the average ransom demanded by the Cosmic Lynx group is about $1.27 million. “We were expecting that Russian cybercriminals would move into the world of BEC because the return on investment for basic social engineering attacks is much higher than launching more sophisticated (and more expensive) malware-based attacks,” the report said.

A Rising Concern

Recently, the FBI warned that organizations that use cloud-based email systems are at high risk to BEC attacks. The bureau advised employees about the email scams that begin with phishing kits designed to mimic two popular cloud-based email services to lure employees into compromising business email accounts and misdirecting funds transfers. The FBI stated that its Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received complaints, between January 2014 and October 2019, claiming more than US$2.1 billion losses from BEC scams.

Facebook Sues App Developers for Harvesting Users’ Data Illegally

Facebook Takes Down Hundreds of Fake Accounts Under Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior

Facebook filed two separate lawsuits in the U.S. and the U.K. against app developers for exploiting its platform and harvesting users’ data illegally. According to a report, Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland charged MobiBurn, OakSmart Technologies and its founder Fatih Haltas in the High Court of Justice for failing to comply with the audit request. The social networking giant claimed that MobiBurn gathered users’ data from Facebook and other social media firms by paying third-party app developers to install a malware “Software Development Kit (SDK)” in their applications.

“When people installed those apps on their devices, MobiBurn collected information from the devices and requested data from Facebook, including the person’s name, time zone, email address and gender. MobiBurn did not compromise Facebook, instead they used the malicious SDK on the users’ devices to collect information,” Facebook said in a report.

MobiBurn’s behavior came to light after security researchers reported the incident in a data abuse bounty program. Facebook then took enforcement action by sending a cease-and-desist letter asking MobiBurn to participate in a security audit, to which MobiBurn denied its cooperation.

In the U.S., Facebook Inc. and Instagram LLC sued Nikolay Holper in Federal Court in San Francisco for running a fake service called “Nakrutka” to sell fake likes, views, comments, and followers on Instagram. Facebook claims that Holper used a network of bots and automation software to run his fake engagement services on Instagram.

Lawsuits Filed Earlier

This is not the first time Facebook took legal action against abusers. Recently, it filed a similar lawsuit against Namecheap, an Arizona-based provider of domain name registrars online, for refusing to cooperate in an investigation to find malicious domains that have been registered through its services. Namecheap impersonated Facebook’s brand name and refused to share details about the owners of the suspicious domains. Security experts at Facebook tracked down 45 suspicious lookalike domains that are registered via Namecheap. It also filed a lawsuit in Virginia against 12 hoax domain names registered by Indian-based proxy service provider Compsys Domain Solutions Private Ltd. The malicious domains spoofed Facebook and its product names to carry out unethical activities.

Start Measuring Your Cybersecurity Maturity Today

Security

We, cybersecurity professionals, have been hiding behind lies for a few years now.

“Cybersecurity is a new industry. There is not enough data to measure maturity”

“Maturity models work where there are well-defined processes to follow. Like software development. Not cybersecurity. We live a new problem every day.”

All hogwash. Or as Roald Dahl’s BFG would put it – ‘Redunculus.’

It’s about time CISOs stop making excuses – and started taking concrete steps to measure their cybersecurity maturity.

By Chaitanya Kunthe, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Risk Quotient

What exactly is a maturity model?

Every CISO has faced existential questions like these:

Is our cybersecurity improving? What do we do to improve further?

Are we better off today than we were last year? How do we know that?

Capability and maturity models answer these questions. For more details read this paper.

A maturity model allows an organization to assess its practices against a clear set of benchmarks. Evaluating against these benchmarks provides an organization with a clear understanding of where they currently are and provides a roadmap to improve its maturity.

There are two types of maturity models – ‘progression’ models and ‘capability’ models. Combining the two creates a third type – hybrid.

Progression Models: Logs enabled and reviewed on servers → Centralized Logging and Alerting → SIEM implemented. Here, the core requirement is the monitoring of logs. What changes is the way monitoring is done. Automated ways of doing things move you up the ranking. You progress from a manual way of doing things to an automated way of doing things.

Capability Maturity Models: Ad hoc event reporting → Defined events and incidents → Risk-based event and incident monitoring and reporting. Here, the core requirement is reporting and managing incidents. The focus is on process maturity. You progress from an ‘ad-hoc’ process to a managed and measured process.

Both of these models have certain inherent problems. The progression model might lead you down a very sticky ‘tool’ driven path where the solution to every problem would be to implement a new tool. The capability maturity model can take you down a very theoretical path of ‘measured,’ ‘monitored,’ ‘managed’ and creating MBs of documents and processes. The hybrid model blends the best part of both these approaches.

Hybrid Models: Incidents reported in an ad-hoc manner → Criteria for reporting defined. Central Logging enabled → Pattern analysis to detect incidents automatically, risk-based incident scoring. A hybrid model uses a mix of both progression and capability maturity models.

Why go for a cybersecurity maturity model?

Measuring cybersecurity is like trying to find that irritating noise in your car. You know it is there. You can hear it. You just don’t know where it is. You know you have to measure cybersecurity effectiveness. You just don’t know what to measure and how.

Is your cybersecurity effective? There are two ways to find out – the simple way and the hard way.

The simple way is to go through a third-party audit and certification. Rely on global standards like ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, NIST-CSF. Hire auditors. Trust that the auditors you have hired understand your environment and assess you. In a fair and accurate manner that it improves your cybersecurity.

The hard way is to define your own metrics and measurement based on risks. This is way more effective, but a self-assessment is not what your customers and regulators will accept easily.

In both these methods, you do not have a clear path to improvement. Cybersecurity maturity frameworks give you this path (Not to mention it helps getting budgets approvals).

Which one, then?

If you’ve read so far, you are probably wondering which framework to go for. Veterans in information security would recollect a maturity model called the SSE-CMM. Systems Security Engineering – Capability & Maturity Model. The SSE-CMM website no longer exists, but you can see what the standard was like by visiting this URL: SSE-CMM Home Page.

This was way back in 2003. Then for more than a decade, no one spoke of cybersecurity maturity. Today, there are two good cybersecurity maturity frameworks that you can choose from.

The first one is the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) from the U.S. Department of Defense. This model is in the news as it is now mandatory for defense contractors in the U.S. to certify themselves on the CMMC. The CMMC is a hybrid model. There are five maturity levels in the CMMC.

  • Level 1 – Performed
  • Level 2 – Documented
  • Level 3 – Managed
  • Level 4 – Reviewed
  • Level 5 – Optimizing

The maturity levels combine with the 17 domains of NIST 800-171 to make the model.

-NIST 800-171

The second framework comes from the U.S. Department of Energy. It is the Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model or the C2M2. C2M2 was built for critical infrastructure in the energy sector. It has now expanded to include models specific to the electricity sub-sector and the oil and natural gas sub-sector. Further sector specific models are planned too.

This framework has four maturity indicator levels (MIL)

  • MIL0 – No practices
  • MIL1 – Ad-Hoc practices
  • MIL2 – Initial level of institutionalization of practices
  • MIL3 – Further institutionalized and managed

C2M2 model has 10 domains. You can be on different levels in different domains.

C2M2 Domains

Another interesting maturity model to consider is the FISMA metrics. Again, a U.S. government initiative. It focuses on maturity around five function areas of Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover, though it might not directly map to NIST-CSF.

How should you go about it?

Go through the domains of both the standards and choose the framework most appropriate to you. Perform a self-assessment – know where you stand. Be ruthlessly honest about it. If you have a trusted and mature third party who can do the assessment for you, bring them in.

The self-assessment is the beginning. What you do after that is more important. Create a dashboard of the domains and your maturity at each domain and control. Define a ‘to-be’ maturity goal for your organization. Get the relevant stakeholders to agree on this goal. This dashboard becomes your maturity tracker. Implement practices and controls as required and regularly assess yourself for where you stand. Involve the security leadership, else it will reduce to a compliance show that you put up.

A word of warning: Do not go about this exercise as a simple compliance exercise – else you will be subject to the same problems as any other compliances that you maintain. For more information, read:

Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification: An Idea Whose Time Has Not Come And Never May

If you choose to go about this exercise, then here are some tips to make it effective:

  • Involve the security leadership, else it will reduce to a compliance show that you put up.
  • Focus on improvement and measuring that improvement (through your dashboard). Not only on moving up maturity levels.
  • You do not have to be at the highest maturity level. Choose your goals wisely based on your risks.

Finally, remember, any exercise of cybersecurity maturity and measurement can be effective or ineffective based on the intent behind the exercise. Choose wisely.

About the author

Chaitanya KuntheChaitanya Kunthe is a seasoned cybersecurity mentor who believes in simplifying things. He is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Risk Quotient, where he mentors the team to provide innovative and practical cybersecurity advice.

 

Disclaimer

Views expressed in this article are personal. The facts, opinions, and language in the article do not reflect the views of CISO MAG and CISO MAG does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

8 in 10 Consumers are Concerned to Share their Personal Data to Companies

Experian API Flaw

According to a latest survey from security firm Privitar, nearly 78% of consumers globally are concerned or very concerned on personal data protection and more than 50% of them still wary of sharing their personal data with companies. In its survey report “2020 Consumer Trust and Data Privacy Report”, Privitar found that more than three-quarters of respondents are concerned or very concerned about protecting their personal data, with 42% of consumers admitted that they wouldn’t share sensitive data with a business for any reason.

Consumer Sentiment vs Data Protection

The research revealed that most of the consumers aren’t fully aware of how organizations are securing their personal information, with 43% of consumers stating that they don’t know if they’ve worked with a business that has been impacted by a data breach. While 28% admit to not reading privacy notices at all, 42% admitted to only skimming the text. Around 51% said they are still not comfortable sharing their personal information. One-third of respondents said they are most concerned about data being stolen in a breach with 26% worried about it being shared with a third party.

When asked about sharing health care data, only 27% of respondents said they would share health information for health care advancements and research. Another 21% of consumers surveyed would share health data for contact tracing purposes.

Data Privacy Builds Customers’ Loyalty

The report stated that “When working with a business, 40% of consumers think the brand’s trustworthiness is most important when it comes to brand loyalty and 31 percent say it is the brand’s commitment to protecting their data. Evenly matched up with the 30 percent of consumers who believe customer service matters most, the results prove that data protection is just as critical to keeping customers coming back for more.”

However, the survey also highlighted that broken trust and lost responsibility for protecting that data have severe consequences, with 24% of respondents said that they have either stopped doing business or done less business with a company after it was breached.

Jason du Preez, CEO and co-founder of Privitar, said, “The global COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of the trust relationship companies and governments need to build with consumers in an increasingly digital world,” “The results of the survey affirm the growing need for brands to focus on building and maintaining this trust, starting first and foremost with protecting customer data. As more businesses utilize the cloud to enable data driven insights, a firm commitment to data privacy will help to ensure long-term loyalty, consumer satisfaction and shareholder value.”

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