Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2016 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Not having network security today is equivalent to going without any insurance with a million risks over your head.

The importance of network security in any organization goes up a notch when you see a list of everything companies face in threats each year. Government Technology came up with 21 security predictions for 2021 that should give everybody a huge wake-up call.

Being exposed to any of these can lead to disastrous circumstances going beyond just the technical consequences. But how do you best keep up with the always-changing threat landscape out there or put it this way: how can you start to become proactive instead of reactive?

First of all, you should be doing an audit to get an overview of what is going on within your network. Especially in times where we see an increase in people working from home, the classic home internet connection, usually being used for Netflix, Spotify, and the typical shopping spree on Amazon, suddenly is part of a Corporate Network.

Whether you are an ISP, a Cloud & Hosting provider, or a Telco, it doesn’t really matter, the risks and consequences might change depending on the exact use case, but overall you’ll have to deal with those risks and consequences:

See also: Remediation vs. Mitigation — How Best To Handle Network Abuse And Security

Technical Risks

Even if you’ve only heard about things like DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, you need to know about what they can do to you technologically.

26% of DDoS attacks create a massive data loss, which was reported by Kaspersky. This report shows how hard it can be to recover from such an attack and shows what potential threat you might be facing. By the way, Cisco has globally seen an increase of DDoS attacks and reported that there would be up to 15.4 million by 2023.

When you permanently lose critical data, it could easily set off a cascade effect of other things. For one, it could bring a massive wave of compliance violations from the federal government. As a result, you could end up with significant fines eating into any profits you made for the year, which leads right into the next paragraph.

Financial and Legal Risks

Don’t discount the possibility of investing in new infrastructure because the data loss damaged existing equipment. This could place you in financial jeopardy since you may not have the capital expenditures immediately available to invest in new technology. 

Just to mention one of many examples: COX now owes $1 billion to record labels for harboring music pirates just because they didn’t put a proper abuse report handling solution for copyright infringements in place. 

Reputational consequences and lack of customers’ trust

Many network security analysts note that careless or uninformed employees can bring on major security risks. Having this happen reflects directly on your customers who depend on your employees to keep them safe.

For example, as an ISP, this could include your abuse desk team that doesn’t have the proper resources available to combat abuse against your loyal customers. When abuse continues without help, it’s only going to frustrate your customers to a point where they could leave.

The same goes for if you have critical customer data, you’re responsible for keeping it safe. Creating a lack of trust immediately sets off a string of potential reputation issues when word gets out how careless you were.

It’s already been noted how hacks in companies can ruin reputations. Sometimes it’s more than just compromising private customer data. Other times it’s only due to the media picking up on the story and making you look incompetent.

Sometimes a broken reputation is not even the worst outcome – just imagine you can’t stay in business – like the example of Grande Communication shows back in 2019. Just consider how much all corporate hacks (like Sony Entertainment) hurt the national view of how these companies operate over the last few years.

So what to do? 

See also: Developing Your Abuse Handling Solution: Build Or Buy?

Finding Protection For ISPs And Hosting Providers

Without a proper network security and abuse report handling solution in place, your organization might be at high risk. Maybe you’ve waited to add extra security because you thought it would become too expensive or too complicated for your abuse desk team to use.

With our SaaS solution AbuseHQ, it is easy to keep control, knowledge, and oversight within your network to prevent abuse. It enables network security and abuse desk teams to detect, mitigate, and address compromised accounts automatically. It also works as an early warning system to new potential threats you haven’t been aware of.

If you are ready to take your network security to a new level, get in touch, we’ll be happy to arrange a trial for you!