Understanding cyber risk, getting better visibility of exposures, and measuring business impact is at the heart of every organization’s cyber security strategy. Defenders and protectors are in a constant game of cat and mouse with threat actors who are relentlessly upping their game when trying to circumvent cyber security systems.
Even people with very little technical ability to design their own cyber attack can do so through Phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS), which provides regular phishing kits for as low as US$50 and more sophisticated ones for US$900.1
Multifactor authentication – An essential cyber security tool
A variety of supplementary security mechanisms, such as multifactor authentication (MFA), have risen in popularity and adoption across organizations. Historically, a combination of a username and a password has been used to secure online resources and accounts. However, a surge in hackers easily getting access to user credentials made it necessary to add more layers of authentication to ensure that accounts remain secured.
“MFA is now a must-have”, says Heidi Wachs, Aon’s Engagement Management managing director for Cyber Solutions. “It is good cyber security hygiene to do so.” In fact, the use of MFA increased by 78 percent in the month of March 2020 alone,2 when people globally started working from home and organizations tried to bolster security on applications that users accessed outside the office.
MFA use skyrocketed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic
Percentage Change in Unique Users Authenticating with Each Factor

Source: Leading SSO solution provider, Okta