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Imagine having a cyber breach and losing access to all your organization’s technology—accounts receivable, accounts payable, appointment scheduling, everything except that landline that your Gen Z employees secretly roll their eyes at. You can revert to using pen and paper, right? You could probably manage. You were born in the 1900s, the era of scrappy resilience and no crying in baseball!
Your handwriting is not the issue. It’s the loss of all your vital data. Could you replicate your inventory in a ledger in a business day or less? How would you work with customers and vendors on time-sensitive problems? What about sales documents or tax forms? Even if you and your employees could handle all the issues, your organization would slow to a crawl.
Fifteen thousand car dealerships across the US were affected by a vendor cyber breach for more than two weeks. CDK Global, its software provider, suffered two “cyber incidents” that led to the company taking most of its systems offline on June 19. CDK’s restoration process began three days later, with dealerships slowly returning online through July 4. The outage impacted vehicle sales, parts, repairs, and every part of the dealerships’ business. 1
The slowdown drove down June car sales totals compared to 2023, and it’s estimated that dealerships could be losing close to $ 1 billion by the time all issues are resolved. That number does not include the pricy ransom that numerous news agencies report that CDK paid to Russian-linked hackers BlackSuit.
You think you are doing all you can to protect your organization from a cyber breach, but what are your third-party vendors doing? There’s a clear domino effect in these scenarios. There are relatively few companies providing specialty technology and services worldwide. Of the top 150 companies in that industry, 87 have a security grade of B or lower, according to the Security Scorecard.
What should you do to protect your organization? Know your vendors. What software are you running, and what aspects of your business does it touch? What is your backup plan in case of a cyber attack, power outage, or natural disaster? Is Gary from accounting still writing his passwords on a Post-It stuck to the edge of his screen?
If these questions raise your blood pressure, at least you aren’t running a Florida funeral home. Because of a cyber attack at the Florida Department of Health, getting certified copies of death certificates for several weeks has become very difficult, delaying funeral services. Imagine dealing with cyber criminals, grieving families, and Florida bureaucrats all at once.
At Commonwealth Sentinel, we offer technical and training packages to help you prevent falling victim to cyber crime. Our Critical Response Team can help you get your systems back up and running if the worst happens. What’s your first step? Schedule a free consultation today or contact us at (502) 320-9885 for more information.