Nov 10, 2015

Theft and criminal activity in general is rapidly changing, especially in the ways that they affect modern business. Gone are the days of masked individuals making off with thousands of stolen bank notes. These criminals have been replaced by a much darker and more mysterious malicious individual. Hackers can ruin a business's livelihood, all from the comfort of their computer chair. 

These are the new days of cybercriminals, an age defined by malicious data leaks and breaches. Private information has taken the place of physical cash, with guns and masks replaced by computers and proxy servers. A data leak of your online file sharing service can destroy your company if you give it the chance, but do you know why?

The problems start with money…

Although cybercriminals don't start by stealing money, that's usually where they end up. Private company data many times contains references to customer information, such as bank account numbers. Once they've gained access to this data, hackers can then either use the information themselves directly or sell it on the Internet. 

And modern data breaches are nowhere near cheap for a business. The 2015 Cost of Data Breach Study, conducted by IBM, found that the average consolidated monetary loss of a data breach event totaled $3.8 million. That's a whole lot of money to lose over a lax cybersecurity policy, and simply goes to show the importance of something like a secure file sharing service. 

…but brand image damage is way worse

Of course, losing a lot of money is never a good thing, especially for a business. That being said, the actual money lost from a data breach is nothing compared to the huge blow your reputation is going to take if you let one happen to your company.

Being known as the business that let hackers take their customer's private information is probably the worst thing that can happen. Just look at Target in the wake of its massive data breach. The retail giant just recently settled claims with Visa over the 2013 incident that exposed nearly 40 million credit cards, and it still hasn't recovered sales. 

This brand image problem following a data breach isn't just contained to Target. A separate report conducted by IBM and Forbes found that 46 percent of organizations in the study had seen brand image damage following a cybersecurity breach. 

In business, your name is all you have. You can talk about your increased cybersecurity in terms of online file storage until you're blue in the face, but if customers see you as untrustworthy, they aren't going to do business with you. It's a fickle world out there, but that's just the reality of the situation. If your online file sharing service is compromised, you very well could go out of business. 

Thankfully, Memeo has developed a product that should help you in your fight against cybercriminals. The Memeo C1 secure file sharing service gives you peace of mind due to its end-to-end and at-rest encryption, unique encryption keys as well as SSL connections. These cybersecurity features will boost your ability to protect sensitive company information while it's in digital transit, helping to cut down on your risk of becoming the victim of a data breach.