Cybercrimes are costly affairs. Each year, cybercrime costs people and organizations billions of dollars, and some estimate that it actually reaches into the trillions. If these types of crimes haven’t cost that much yet, it’s just a matter of time. You have to consider all of the different costs associated with the crimes. Not only is identity theft and stolen money from peoples’ personal accounts a part of this number. It also includes all of the downtime that companies have to go through, the money that it costs to get back to business, and the money spent on professionals to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.
Of course, with all of the advances that criminals are making with technology, it’s definitely going to happen again. Thus, it’s important to take precautions to make sure that you lower your risk of becoming a victim. For individuals, one of the first things that you want to do is make sure that you have proper protection on all of your computers. This can lower the risk of malware, viruses, and phishing. Increase the strength of your passwords and change them regularly. Don’t open emails from people that you don’t know. For companies and large institutions, having staff that can track and monitor all activities on your networks is important. You also want to make sure that you limit the amount of Internet freedom that your employees have. Without realizing it, they can let an intruder into your network.
These are just a few of the common sense things that you can do to increase your protection against many forms of cybercrime. Law enforcement and government agencies are making use of new laws and computer forensics specialists to help tackle this problem and find those criminals, but it is going to be a long battle. You should do everything that you can to keep yourself safe.
