Cyber-Security's Weakest Link: People

By Mike Mantzke, President and CEO, Global Data Sciences, Inc.

A stark reality facing today’s businesses is the never-ending threat to cyber-security and a strategy for how to combat it. An even greater concern is damage to corporate image, consumer trust, loss of revenue, liability to customers, and the ever-increasing statutes imposed by lawmakers and agencies who point the finger at businesses for failure to take responsibility for preventing data theft.

Cyber-attacks are real and occur often in the places we shop, the materials we move throughout factories and nearly everything we take for granted. Incessant waves of computer, server, cloud and mobile hacking have led to compromised data, unwarranted access to private information such as Social Security numbers and bank accounts, and industrial espionage. The number of attacks on companies has become nearly unquantifiable. The Heritage Foundation reported that in 2015, “companies saw an average of 160 successful cyber-attacks per week, more than three times the 2010 average of 50 per week.” As early as 2006, Joe McGrath, at the time the president of Unisys, called the security of data and systems processes “an incredible challenge in the global/digital economy.” All these years later, this still is true. In fact, it’s become worse.