By Mikolaj Niemczewski @ Adobe Stock
In today’s era of rapidly advancing technology, in which you have a supercomputer with you at all times and homes and businesses are increasingly controlled via the Internet, the potential for cyberattacks to cascade into critical issues is growing.
Forbes recently reported some disturbing facts on cybersecurity:
- There were 2,365 cyberattacks in 2023, with 343,338,964 victims.
- 2023 saw a 72% increase in data breaches since 2021, which held the previous all-time record.
- Around the world, a data breach costs $4.88 million on average in 2024.
- Email is the most common vector for malware, with around 35% of malware delivered via email in 2023.
- Ninety-four percent of organizations have reported email security incidents.
- Business email compromises accounted for over $2.9 billion in losses in 2023.
One recent corporate cyber security breach hit the shelves of the grocery store chain Stop & Shop especially hard. There is a Stop & Shop store not far from Your Survival Guy’s office in Newport, RI, and three in total here on tiny Aquidneck Island. Stop & Shop is owned by grocery store conglomerate, Ahold Delhaize, which also owns Food Lion, Giant, and Hannaford, among others. The cyber attack disrupted its supply chain, leading to food shortages at certain stores. Liz Young reports in The Wall Street Journal:
The cyber incident affected Stop & Shop’s supply-chain operations, leading to shortages of fresh produce, meat and dairy products at some of the grocer’s locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
On Thursday, a spokeswoman for Ahold Delhaize said the shortages are expected to be resolved by the end of this week ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday. The company’s e-commerce operations including grocery delivery and pharmacy services are back up and running across all its brands, she added.
Companies face a range of cybersecurity threats and disruptions as they increase their reliance on technology for tasks such as managing inventory, filling online orders and scheduling deliveries. Cyber issues in recent years have disrupted supply chains for goods ranging from food and consumer products to medical supplies.
A ransomware attack on meatpacker JBS in 2021 knocked out production, pushed up wholesale meat prices and complicated livestock deliveries from farms.
Consumer-products manufacturer Clorox last year experienced a cyberattack that led to shortages of some products.
A blood distributor in the Southeast U.S. in July suffered a cyberattack that disrupted distribution of blood products.
Recent cyberattacks are going beyond customer data to target business operations.
Action Line: If Americans learned anything from the COVID-19 response, it’s that the supply chain is fragile. Add in a heavy reliance on internet connectivity, and that fragility is open to attack by people from around the world. Prepare yourself with redundancies and some extra inventory to smooth out the shocks from disruptions. You need to spend some money on survival, it’s very important. A little extra expenditure can give your family members the security they deserve. This is especially true for drinking water supplies if you rely on delivery or town systems. If you haven’t already, click here to download my free special report: Emergency Water Storage: How Much, Containers, Purification & More.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
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