Cyber incident

A cyber incident is any event that affects your stored information or your IT resources and could cause significant damage to your business. The range of cyber incidents is wide, including malware infections, extortion, theft of confidential data, and misuse of bank accounts.

What does the term cyber incident mean in detail?

According to the Allianz Risk Barometer 2019, cyber incidents are among the largest business risks worldwide on a par with business interruptions. It is important to remember that cyber incidents can also lead to business interruptions, e.g. if they affect production facilities, lock computers or delete servers. For individual companies, a cyber incident can cause high costs. According to Allianz, the average damage reported in Germany is two million euros.

Common types of cyber incidents include:

• Infections by programs that lock one, several, or all computers and demand a ransom, after which the lock is supposedly reversed (which is not always the case)
• Infections by programs that delete important information, such as customer data
• Accidental or malicious deletion of your data by employees or former employees
  Phishing (Fraudulent Emails)
• Social engineering (information theft through abusive relationship building, often with people invented solely for this purpose)

Where do I encounter cyber incidents in my everyday work?

Unfortunately, you can encounter the topic of cyber incidents at many stages of your everyday work. For example:

• After a careless click on a link in an email
• After opening an email attachment that contains malware
• After connecting a customer’s USB stick
• After connecting a personal smartphone to the corporate Wi-Fi network
• Unfortunately, the consequences can be significant and cause great damage to your business.

From a positive point of view, this creates many opportunities for you in your everyday work to protect your company from damage caused by cyber incidents through your well-considered actions.

What can I do to protect myself from cyber incidents?

Effectively minimizing the different types of cyber incidents is a comprehensive task – but every measure helps. Whether it starts with you personally, the entire staff, in the server room or in the network.

For example:

• As a matter of principle, do not click on links in emails. Instead, consciously use the detour via the browser.
• Treat email attachments with great suspicion. If necessary, check the origin independently of your e-mail program (e.g. by calling).
• Try to avoid foreign or private USB sticks as much as possible
• Set up a separate Wi-Fi network in your company for devices that are also used for personal use, such as smartphones.

Further interesting information can be found at:

• Guide to Internet Crime of the Brandenburg Police with Explanations and Options for Action
  Topic page “IT security at the workplace” of Deutschland sicher im Netz e. V.
• On the bot-free website, you can find safety tips, programs for checking suspicious files online, and first responder programs, such as malware removal