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International News

Don’t “Blow Off” Cybersecurity

By: Mark Sangster, Vice President and Industry Security Strategist, eSentire
M artin Luther, the famous German theo- after the big guys, consider the fact that it’s small

logian and religious reformer, is credited and medium-sized businesses (SMB) that are the
with saying “Beer is made by men, wine
Investigation Report, Verizon 2020).
by God.” Had he lived another 475 years, he likely primary targets for data breaches (Data Breach
would have added that “Cybercrime is made by the
Devil.” And, he wouldn’t have been too far off. To be sure, there are threat actors that are out
to make trouble, whether it’s disrupting critical
Cybercrime is insidious: It knows no borders and fuel pipelines or, like the modern-day equivalent
as we’ve seen, knows no bounds. In fact, a report of sleeper agents, quietly accessing classified sys-
from Cybersecurity Ventures predicted that the tems to gather top-secret information or cripple
global cost of cybercrime will reach $6 trillion USD it at a later date. However, what most companies
this year. According to the 2019 Cost of Cybercrime encounter comes as the result of unadulterated
study by Accenture and the Ponemon Institute, greed from a run-of-the-mill cyber crook. Just like
the average cost of cybercrime to a U.S. organiza- your average street criminal, these people attack
tion was $13 million — a significant sum. And, a businesses because that’s where the money is.
report from my own company eSentire found that And like it or not, SMBs, such as family-run win-
cybercriminals netted more than $45 million in the eries and vineyards, make for low-hanging fruit.
first four months of 2021 alone. But before you Cyber attacks on the wine, spirits and beer industry
start thinking that means cybercriminals only go have ramped up in the past year including hits on

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