COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Across America, more than $3 billion was stolen from businesses because of ransomware attacks last year, according to FBI data.
When that happens, small businesses often never reopen their doors. However, one Central Ohio organization is working to keep that from happening.
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Over the past two days, a central Ohio-based cybersecurity company has been helping security professionals learn the latest threats facing businesses across the United States and how to prevent them. One of those threats is fueled by AI.
“The old tactics still work; AI is just allowing it to go faster and be more believable,” Logically CEO Joshua Skeens said.
Skeens spoke about one example of AI used to try to steal information by using a cloned CEO voice on WhatsApp. The risk is something many conference attendees are familiar with.
“It used to take, you know, bad actors and teams of bad actors months to develop ransomware. Now you can leverage AI to carefully craft an email to get somebody to download something they shouldn’t,” World Outreach IT Operations Manager Patrick Vest said.
Skeens says it’s important that businesses have ongoing conversations about security threats as they continue to evolve.
“Around 83% of businesses under a thousand employees suffer a ransomware attack and whenever a business of that size suffers a ransomware attack, typically they state that 60% of those businesses go out of business,” Skeens said.
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Some advice to protect your business: set up multifactor authentication, use strong passwords, avoid suspicious links and install firewalls and antivirus software. Also speak with others in the cyber community and get feedback on what else your business needs.
“People want to protect what we do and everything like that, but there’s a lot of stuff that we can work together with,” Vest said.
We have extensively covered steps you can take to protect yourself and your data. You can find those resources linked here.
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