CLEVELAND — With cyber-attacks at an all-time high across the nation, more businesses are concerned and investing in extra security measures, including those right here in Northeast Ohio.
Kim Morley is the owner of Kim's Korner and Blazing Auctions, where her sales usually take place online. For her, running those online auctions takes a lot of work and the companies she uses have security, so a data breach wasn’t a major concern.
"I think I truly put a lot of trust in the systems that we work through because we are through third-party companies," said Morley.
Though she was never a victim, more recently, she realized the reality of an attack.
“Every time you turn around, you get another piece of mail, or you get an email saying that this company got a data breach,” said Morley.
Across the nation, cyber-attacks have hit an all-time high, affecting companies large and small. James Giszczak is the co-president at McDonald Hopkins and serves as the co-chair of data privacy and cyber security, where a 2024 survey showed that 61% of businesses are more concerned about a data breach and 70% are investing in higher security.
"So most organizations, you know, aren't thinking that this is a million dollar or couple million dollar issue. They think it might be some type of inconvenience, but we work with organizations every day that are suffering from this," said Giszczak.
Adding that 75% of all instances are due to human error.
"It's somebody in the organization who makes the mistake of either clicking on the fishing link or giving up their credentials," said Giszczak.
So, for a business to protect itself, Giszczak recommends a few things: first, talk to an insurance broker about extra coverage and if it's needed. Second, know what type of sensitive data you have and who has access. Lastly, train your staff.
"So preparation and understanding, having that incident response plan conducting a tabletop exercise where you conduct a mock exercise so that you understand what is actually going to happen during the course of one of these events and how you should be responding appropriately,” said Giszczak.
Reminding every company that it's not about if but when.
For Kim, she knows the detriment an attack would be, so she has now added another layer of cyber security and triple-checks everything
“I truly just call my guy at the selling platform. I say, hey, what do we do? Where are we at? What's going on with this? And he usually says we're good, we're protected,” said Morley.
She says she does all for the sake of her business, but more importantly, her customers.
“Make sure that you're protecting your clients, because your business is your clients,” said Morley.
For more information on the McDonald Hopkins survey and how you can prevent a data breach, click here.
