The Rise of Cybercrime
With the increase in homeworking and digitization at organizations, among other things, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important. Consequently, the need for digital security is moving up the agenda of large companies as well as SMEs and self-employed individuals. Not for nothing does cybercrime rank second in the top five biggest concerns of businesses. Cybersecurity companies such as CyberAnt are experiencing tremendous growth due to the increasing demand for solutions.
Cybercrime on the rise
Cybercrime has been on the rise in the Netherlands for some time. In recent years, traditional crime is increasingly shifting to digital crime:
“The police recorded fourteen thousand cases of cybercrime in 2021. That’s an increase of almost a third compared to 2020 and three times more than in 2019.”
Thus the Prosecutor’s Office over in its 2021 annual report. But not only did the number of cases rise: the impact of the attacks also increased dramatically. Just earlier this year, 120 dental practices were unable to help patients for days because the collective system was hacked. The hackers demanded 2 million euros and this amount was eventually paid.
Prevention is better than cure
Many organizations often lack the knowledge or budget to increase resilience to cybercrime.
“If you can afford to be at risk, there’s nothing to worry about.”
Jolijn Knikman, CEO of CyberAnt.com.
Business owners often still have the idea that investing in cybersecurity is an expensive exercise, until the moment they get hacked and the hacker demands so much money that it can even end in bankruptcy. So prevention is better than cure, and unfortunately that is where things still go wrong far too often in the Netherlands. Awareness is now there, but not nearly enough.
The growth and necessity of cybersecurity companies
CyberAnt is one of the companies that works every day, to prevent cyber attacks, to improve the cyber security of organizations. In recent years, cybersecurity companies have invested heavily in developing innovative solutions and investigative methods that quickly put vulnerabilities in networks, Web applications and custom software on the radar. That way, hackers don’t get a chance to do damage to systems, or worse, for a company to shut down completely because systems stop working.
The government is also already taking many initiatives to warn companies, as well as self-employed people with websites, about the risks. A data breach can already cause a large fine, not to mention what it does to one’s reputation to customers if cybersecurity turns out not to be in order. Still, Knikman notes that too little is being done to help business owners understand what it takes to avoid this kind of misery.
“Through our developed innovative solutions and methods, we can now very quickly map the cyber resilience of any large or small company. And in doing so, our cyber specialists, also called ethical hackers, point out exactly what one can do to keep hackers out.”
The team’s focus now is on making the risks understandable and providing insightful solutions for companies to prevent cybercrime or a hack.
CyberAnt pushes for greater resilience against cybercrime
Jolijn Knikman (45) has been appointed the new CEO of CyberAnt.com effective July 1, 2022. She has been tasked with growing CyberAnt so that more businesses and entrepreneurs can become resilient against cybercrime.
“My goal is to be relevant and able to contribute to a solution against cybercrime for entrepreneurial Holland. And that we make a real difference with our innovative solutions to prevent cybercrime.”
According to Knikman, in addition to reaching the target audience, recruiting the right people is quite a challenge. In this time of scarcity, it is not easy to find cybersecurity specialists. The growth of a company like CyberAnt will depend in part on that. “But we are a young, fun and ambitious company, so once someone is in, they don’t want to leave!”
