Cyber attacks, such as today's widespread ransomware attacks, are becoming increasingly aggressive. The costs of data theft, caused by downtime, for hardening the IT infrastructure, for ransom money and for restoring a damaged reputation are constantly increasing. Both large companies and SMEs are targets. And the current crises make it impressively clear: critical state infrastructures are also becoming the focus of hackers. Most managing directors and managers have now recognized cyber risks as a primary challenge. So it's high time to point out some clarifying aspects.

In conventional, internal IT environments, ransomware is very difficult to prevent. All it takes is one employee's mistake and the ransomware is in the building. Giving in to the resulting blackmail and restoring the environment usually costs 10-20% of an annual turnover.

Traditional measures such as access control, antivirus, endpoint detection & response, backup/restore etc. only work if they have been implemented very comprehensively. On the one hand, these are costly measures; on the other hand, there is often a lack of expertise (now also due to the shortage of specialists) to implement and manage all these products correctly and, in particular, "seamlessly".

It has to be said: Cyber criminals are exploiting every vulnerability, no matter how small, and their attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Ransom attacks cannot be (sufficiently) prevented by traditional means. Without state-of-the-art protective measures, every company and every institution will be hit - sooner or later. Increasingly expensive cyber insurance policies - or worse, cyber risks that are no longer insurable - are the mathematical proof of the growing risk.

So the question is, what possible protective measures are available? Inaction is not an option.

There are cyber defense approaches that address several current cyber risk challenges in combination!

Here are our "5 cents":

• Digitize
  Digitization requires trust in the correctness of internal and, increasingly, external data and the flawless functioning of systems and processes. Encryption of application data makes unauthorized or accidental changes or even data theft much more difficult - in contrast to the encryption of data files. This increases the Integrity of data and processes.

• Cloudify
  Service recipients cannot access the data storage of SaaS solutions. This means that even if your local environment is compromised, hostile access to your cloud SaaS solutions is (almost) impossible. This increases the Availability of your data and processes.

• Automate
  Automate data protection in the cloud, for example on the basis of a SASE security architecture or with a CASB solution, to actively ensure secure and compliant cloud usage across multiple providers. This increases the Confidentiality of your data and processes.

If cyber risks have also become an increasingly important issue in your company, secure digitalization based on SaaS solutions - ideally supplemented with the automated functions of a CASB solution - is a very effective measure. A measure that is due sooner or later.

We support you with the cyber protection of your critical infrastructure.