Experion member Bill Ross of Vercerta did a presentation on Risk Management and Cybersecurity at the April 16 meeting. It was a revealing look at common threats to businesses and what they can do about it. Vercerta is a company that provides a number of consulting services to its clients, including how to create a framework to evaluate risk and then put it into action.

In his presentation Bill got into the world – and language – of cybercrime with everything from intelligent worms to botnets. He explained how those with evil intent manage to infiltrate organizations and their data, but the most common method is simply cracking the password.

How to protect your data with best practices often depends on striking the right balance between risk and how much you want to spend. Bill explored the cost of security intrusion, the vulnerability of the Internet, defensive measures to take, and the responsibilities of management and company directors. He mentioned some frightening stats: he said the average cost of a security intrusion is $2.6 million and the average length of time to resolve a malicious attack is 50 days! He also provided real-life examples of serious security breaches.