Veratta's Monica Cope urges all to check how they protect their information from cyber crime.

With Obama declaring cyber threats a "national emergency" in the United States, cyber crime is a key discussion point in the financial services industry in the UK.

It is fast becoming one of the most important business priorities, but do we really understand what is happening on our networks?

As the internet and consumer technologies have revolutionised our society, the growing networked world and the expansion of cyberspace have facilitated an upsurge in cyber crime.

More criminals are exploiting cyber vulnerabilities and the nature of these crimes is becoming increasingly complex.

Every organisation is a potential victim of cyber crime, and organisations of all sizes continue to suffer from external attacks.

The motivation for a cyber attack may be financial gain (we all know data is valuable), deliberate sabotage or competitor advantage.

However, cyber crime also includes internal attacks by users with legitimate access, either by accidental or deliberate misuse.

Notably, the overall cost of security breaches is on the rise. In addition to any direct financial loss arising from a cyber attack, you should also consider the incident response costs and the potential reputational damage.

As such, it is crucial that organisations become more cyber security conscious to protect themselves from attacks against computer hardware and software, for example, network intrusion, distributed denial of service, and viruses and malware.

Similarly, user training, controls and processes should be in place to protect against financial crimes, such as online fraud and phishing
Cyber threats are constantly evolving and becoming increasingly difficult to detect and defend against.

In this changing landscape, how can we enhance our security posture?

Some businesses have taken encouraging steps in the fight against cyber crime. The "10 Steps to Cyber Security" was re-launched in January 2015 to help organisations protect themselves.

The supplementary paper, "Common Cyber Attacks: Reducing The Impact" sets out what a common cyber attack looks like and how attackers typically execute them.

While we can't eliminate cyber risk, it is crucial that we understand our weak points and have plans in place to respond quickly to information security breaches. Have you done enough to defend your information assets?

Written by Monica Cope, COO, Veratta