First of all, there is a saying going around that “it’s not if you’ll get breached, it’s when”. Today, effective protection requires insight into both the nature and motivation of attacks. Unfortunately, most businesses don’t know who is attacking them, why, or what they’re after.

Cybercriminals are no longer solitary figures who carry out their crimes in isolation, but instead part of an ever-expanding network of virtual crime that’s gaining power every day. The evolution of cybercrime has led to the emergence of a crime sphere that’s highly connected, spread out across the globe and alarmingly efficient in terms of their capacity to compromise networks and steal data and money. Businesses can count on the principle of continuous improvement among cybercriminals.

Breaches are not events, they are processes. Today, the worst breaches are not “one time attacks or thefts”. They are system vulnerabilities exploited over long periods of time. This means it is just as important to know when you’ve been breached, and how to shut it down, as it is to prevent the breach in the first place.

The good news? We’ve been seeing some really good solutions coming down the pike, including incident response, compromise assessments and advanced threat management services. The goal of a cybersecurity strategy is to reduce exposure, recover faster and reduce potential damage.

First, you have to know what’s coming. This is about being proactive by identifying vulnerabilities and taking assessment of your capabilities. Second, you need to secure your digital interactions by hardening your defenses – often at the code level. Staff training around common cybercrime tactics is recommended. Third, detect and manage inevitable breaches with robust analytics. Finally, it’s extremely important to ensure business continuity and availability of your IT environments, systems and apps.