TALKING

It ’ s difficult to relate to and equate the impact of cybercrime on its victims – whether it ’ s an individual who has fallen foul of an online scam or a company that has been forced to pay a ransom to restore its systems . For this reason , it doesn ’ t always seem that cybercrime is viewed or treated like a ‘ real ’ crime .

While we acknowledge that cybercrime is an actual crime , for some it might be difficult to get onboard with . The thought of being totally outraged by a hacker taking down a multinational corporation could seem a bit far-fetched .

This is possibly because of the stereotypes about cybercriminals being painted as disgruntled computer science whizz-kids with nothing better to do than ‘ stick it to the man .’ Consider that the majority of cyberattacks are the work of huge , organized and wealthy crime syndicates . They are highly sophisticated operations with the aim of stealing money from the business that pays your salary and the government that collects your taxes . Does that sound like a crime ?

Are we guilty of victim blaming ?

The fact is that cybercrime is an actual crime and businesses that fall foul of it are victims . They have suffered a crime committed against them .

However , the level of sympathy towards organizations that get breached is very different to what we would give to an individual . If someone tells you they ’ ve been hacked , had personal information compromised , and money stolen , your natural reaction probably isn ’ t to say it ’ s their fault .

However , cyberbreaches are a source of lasting reputational damage to businesses . We tend to assume they did something wrong or acted carelessly . As somebody who has worked in the data protection industry for over 32 years , I would tend to agree with

Dave Russell , VP , Enterprise Strategy , Veeam

The fact is that cybercrime is an actual crime and businesses that fall foul of it are victims .

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