Paulius Petretis, leading cyber security expert posits that it’s much more financially wise to make cyber security a priority instead of facing lawsuits for not protecting the information of individuals a company is responsible for when data systems are breached.

Vilnius, Lithuania – November 30, 2017 – Paulius Petretis, CEO of VORAS Consulting posted a new article on the company website entitled “Would You Rather Pay For Cyber-security Or Face Endless Lawsuits,” in which Mr. Petretis continues to turn his readers attention to the approaching GDPR deadline.

Petretis states, “It was bound to happen.” He elaborates, “Angry consumers whose information gets stolen from companies who are supposed to protect it are going to rise up and start suing those companies for not protecting their information. That’s what’s happening in the U.S. now after this year’s massive Equifax breach.”

“So far, it is being reported that Equifax is facing as many as 30 lawsuits,” says Petretis. He adds, “That figure could grow considering 143 million Americans were affected in the breach.”

Petretis shares some widely published information from Bloomberg.com reporting, “users alleged Equifax was negligent in failing to protect consumer data, choosing to save money instead of spending on technical safeguards that could have stopped the attack. Data revealed included Social Security numbers, addresses, driver’s license data, and birth dates. Some credit card information was also put at risk.” (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-08/equifax-sued-over-massive-hack-in-multibillion-dollar-lawsuit)

As Petretis points out, “In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been established to protect the information of all individuals in the EU. Every business that does business with anyone who lives in the EU must comply with the new regulation. The deadline for compliance is May 2018. “

“I would imagine that Equifax holds sensitive information of people who live in the EU, since it was reported that several million people in the UK were also compromised in the breach,” Petretis writes, adding, “So, skimping on cyber security measures was not in their best interest.”

The entire article can be read here: https://voras-consulting.com/would-you-rather-pay-for-cyber-security-or-face-endless-lawsuits/

Paulius Petretis

Paulius Petretis is an Information security expert, Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM®), Certified Information System Auditor (CISA®), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT(CGEIT®) and Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC®), Guest speaker at various conferences and seminars, Trainer at information security related training courses.

According to the annual survey initiated by the Info Security Europe, a whopping 93% of large organizations and 76% of small businesses had at least a single information security breach in 2011. Only 18% of the organizations affected by the infringements related to data protection laws had a consistent and effective contingency plan in place. According to Paulius, information is not something static – it evolves and mutates every day. It is the ecosystem of every business and if a single cell fails, it can bring down the entire business.

Therefore ensuring a consistent and up-to-date information protection policy must be the priority for all businesses – no matter how big or small they are. As it might be unrealistic to believe that any young or experienced entrepreneur can be the jack of all trades, the really smart decision is to rely on specialists who dedicate their professional lives to getting to know everything there is to know about protecting important business information.

With more than 16 years of experience in helping people, small businesses, and government organizations to protect their business secrets, Paulius believes that information security must help businesses achieve goals but not vice versa.

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