Recent data shows cyber crimes are becoming more and more prevalent every year. Cyber security experts are predicting the global cost of cyber crime will rise from nearly eight and a half trillion dollars from last year, to nearly $24 trillion by 2027.

As a result, the white house is pursuing security upgrades, including an order to mandate the implementation of Zero Trust Architecture.

“Really what zero trust says is okay instead of just trusting that you are a good person and you’re supposed to have access to this data because you’re inside the walls, we’re going to verify it. We’re going to look at all kinds of information whether that be user identities or machine information, location awareness, and not just trust implicitly but actually look at all these flying green controls and say okay you shouldn’t have access to this because you are an accountant. You don’t need sales data. Things like that, really looking at it more contextually,” said David Markley, Stronghold Data.

Markley explains just how beneficial the Zero Trust Architecture could be to an individual or a company.

“Ransomware has made the news and a lot of headlines and it’s very disruptive to a business or to an individual. But actually business email compromise or because it is one of the top threats that we see. And that can be anywhere from just getting in the middle of an email conversation and saying hey that payment you’re gonna send this vendor, here’s the actual account number, and they kind of slip into those conversations. Usually it’s a phishing email that they get into.”

That’s then how they steal people’s identification or money.

“There’s a combination of reasons why you know there’s payments going to these bad actors. Ransomware can be one of them where they say we’ve lost your files. You can’t have access to that unless you pay us money. Some of that is business email compromise, where again they’re actually compromising a banking transaction. So it’s just moving cash that would normally go fine and go to a vendor go to a partner and it just went in and was diverted,” he added.

Markely also suggests, if you see something odd, tell someone about it. Don’t wait! The sooner you can identify you are under a cyber attack the better you are able to prevent it.

“The biggest thing that I would say is just work with a great partner that’s got your back and has visibility over all the various areas that you can get attacked and you know, to be vigilant with that. And then in order to respond, it’s really about sickness. Be very quick as much as possible. If anything doesn’t look right. Please contact your it provider, it teams because time is of the essence,” said Markely.