Page 184 - Cyber Defense eMagazine August 2024

Reactive action is the most expensive path

All three of these avenues insist on taking proactive action to stop cybersecurity threats before they
become large problems. We don’t need to look too far back to see the havoc that breaches cause to a
city or state’s population, and the subsequent expense of either paying a ransom or fixing the problems
they caused. A ransomware attack on the City of Dallas last year led to spending of $8.5 million in
taxpayer money on software, hardware, the hiring of forensics experts, in addition to two years of credit
monitoring for people affected by the breach.

With the right cybersecurity resources, it’s likely Dallas could have avoided the attack and not incurred
such a large expense. Many tools on the market, including those that proactively manage software
vulnerabilities, can ultimately save government and educational organizations money by stopping
breaches before they happen.

The United States allocates a significant budget to physical security, but cybersecurity is overlooked and
underfunded. To deal with this critical frontier, cybersecurity solution providers need to work with
government and educational agencies to keep their data secure and protect the people they serve. The
landscape is becoming more and more dangerous. Agencies need to ante up, or risk their organizations
and constituents paying the consequences.

About the author

Sarah Gray is the Director of Product Marketing at Adaptiva, a Global Leader in
Autonomous Endpoint Management.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – August 2024 Edition 184
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