On June 3, I discussed the perils of not protecting your company’s computer network from cyber attacks. In that article, I focused on the fact that most small business owners, because of their size, assume that they are safe from hackers. As we learned, your company’s size really does not matter to a cyber criminal.

Then in a follow-up to my piece, Tom Farrell posted an article with some very interesting specifics about three reasons why a hacker would target your business’s website. His discussion of “botnets” in that piece was really troubling. The fact that your website might be under attack without you even knowing was equally disturbing.

It now seems like nearly every day we are hearing about major U.S. corporations that are coming under cyber attacks. For instance, earlier this month additional details were released about the Citigroup cyber attacks that took place in May. You may have heard the story. At the time it occurred, Citigroup downplayed the severity of the attacks saying, “its security team identified the attack May 10th and immediately rectified the situation.” However, now we have learned that hackers in May obtained information on 360,083 credit accounts in North America, which is about 80% more than first estimated. [Read more…]