According to a new study by RSA and the Ponemon Institute, Cyber Monday represents an average 55 percent surge in daily online/mobile retail revenues.
A corresponding surge in attacks drives hard losses, on average, as much as $500,000 per hour or $8,000 per minute. Customer churn from reputation and brand damage can drive losses to as much as $3.4 million from a single hour of disruption.
While 64 percent of organizations see significant increases in attack activity, only 23 percent of attacks can be detected quickly and remediated, and nearly 70 percent of organizations do not take additional precautions in anticipation of increased attacks.
RSA, The Security Division of EMC, today announced the results of a study conducted by the Ponemon Institute looking at the cost of fraud and online disruption coincident with Cyber Monday. The study surveyed 1,100 IT staff inside of retail organizations in the U.S. and UK.
As the holiday season approaches, retail organizations look forward to, and prepare for what should be a daily revenue surge that respondents in the study calculate as an average of 55 percent. Respondents also expressed concern that a corresponding surge in attacks in these timeframes puts those business gains at risk, with losses on average of as much as $500,000 per hour, or $8,000 per minute. The issue becomes more troubling as 66 percent expect that disruption would result in customer churn that would damage reputation and brand and could push losses as high as $3.4 million from a single hour of disruption.
It would seem that the evidence of what is at risk and the inevitability of the threat could not be more urgent, but organizational preparedness and action is lacking. While 64 percent of organizations see significant increases in attack activity, more than 70 percent of organizations do not take additional precautions in anticipation of increased attacks. Additionally, with current capabilities, 51 percent say that they do not have real-time visibility into web traffic making it difficult to identify the root cause of such attacks – leaving only 23 percent feeling that most attacks can be quickly detected and remediated. The report also identifies the top nine scenarios organizations will likely face approaching Cyber Monday with the vast majority categorizing these as difficult or very difficult to detect. In order of likelihood, the attack scenarios are:
Botnet and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
App Store Fraud
Mobile Access/Account Compromise
Click Fraud
Stolen Credit Card Validation
eCoupon Abuse
Account Hijacking
Electronic Wallet Abuse
Brand Promotion Hijacking
Demetrios Lazarikos, IT Threat Strategist, RSA, The Security Division of EMC
“The competitive climate and the unpredictability of the economy does not leave organizations much margin for business error. Unfortunately, the stealth and savvy cybercriminals have advanced to a point where traditional security and fraud defenses on which businesses rely on are at best insufficient and at worst….obsolete. Business logic abuse hides in plain sight because it uses ‘legitimate’ processes for illegitimate gain. The problem requires universal visibility, a risk layered approach, and a new way of understanding the adversary. Isolating the outliers in crowd behavior that indicate attacks is critical for identifying malicious behavior and business logic abuse.”
Larry Ponemon, Ph.D., Chairman and Founder, The Ponemon Institute, CIPP
“While the findings here are admittedly shocking, they underscore an age-old issue in that budgets and business dynamics perpetuate vulnerability and keep organizations behind the eight ball. However, all is not lost. Forward-thinking organizations that have the agility to break from the status quo and embrace innovation can not only better protect their business, but also gain a massive advantage. Reducing losses from fraud and increasing trust in the brand can propel a business ahead of its competitors.”
Read the full report: The 2013 eCommerce Cyber Crime Report: Safeguarding Brand And Re venue This Holiday Season
Learn more by attending a webinar with Don Davis, Internet Retailer, Jason Sloderbeck, RSA, Demetrios "Laz" Lazarikos, RSA and Larry Ponemon, The Ponemon Institute
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